From the comfort of your own home, join a multiple award-winning charity in their quest to encourage the survival of elephants living in a remote corner of Sri Lanka. The work that you will assist with is essential to help the charity to continue their vital role of helping humans and wildlife to live alongside each other sustainably.

A century ago, more than 20,000 elephants lived in the wild in Sri Lanka. Today, due to increased farming and elephant habitat destruction, just 5,000 of these gentle giants live within their natural social structures outside of captivity. The elephant, the symbol of the country, is considered sacred – and this makes their decline all the more devastating. This online volunteering project encourages remote volunteers to help conservation efforts through research, analysis, social media and raising awareness – all of which help the conservation fund to reduce elephant poaching and promote local livelihoods.

The online volunteering program curriculum is designed provide background information through readings and presentations, lesson plans, interactive exercises and discussions, graphics, photos, videos, worksheets, quizzes, homework and independent assignments. You can choose the project which suits you best from the list below. Prior experience or knowledge is not required. You will need to have access to a computer, the internet, Skype and Zoom. Lectures will be scheduled in a way that will be most convenient for all participants in different time zones on the course.

The sessions will be 2 hours twice per week for a duration of 2 weeks – days and times will be confirmed based on participant availability, offering complete flexibility

This introductory workshop, taught by a researcher, aims to teach you about Asian elephants, why they need help and what is being done to help them. You will learn more about the charity and the work that they are doing to conserve the elephant in the wild.

The following topics will be covered:

• The Asian elephant in history and legend
• Status and distribution of the Asian elephant
• Asian elephant behaviour and physique
• Captive elephants and wild elephants
• Human elephant conflicts
• Conservation & Management

The sessions will be 2 hours twice per week for a duration of 2 weeks – days and times will be confirmed based on participant availability, offering complete flexibility

The identification of individuals is one of the first steps in studying animal behaviour and conservation. The objectives and goals of the course is to understand how social behaviour drives movements, reproduction, population dynamics and social bonds through studying individually identified elephants.

Led by an ecologist, you will learn how to identify an elephant and tell the difference between various elephants. You will receive reading material and an introductory lecture to learn about elephant ID and the project you will be completing. Once your induction has been completed, you will receive elephant ID card templates and a data set of individual elephants and elephant herds. Your task will be to:

• Analyse photographs to identify individual elephants, their sex and their age
• View video footage of individuals, groups or herds
• Fill elephant ID catalogue cards and input data

The sessions will be 2 hours three times per week for a duration of 3 weeks – days and times will be confirmed based on participant availability, offering complete flexibility

Through research and data collection, it has been found that orange trees are a natural deterrent for elephants. Over the past 5 years, volunteers have been helping to plant orange trees around farmers’ fields to naturally prevent elephants from crop raiding. This has become one of the most important conservation methods to date, not only protecting the elephants from angry farmers, but also giving the farmers a sustainable income.

To date, this project has effectively minimised human-elephant conflict for 468 farmers in 27 villages, creating an environment where humans and elephants can coexist. Online volunteers will take part in mitigating human elephant conflicts, helping poor farmers to safeguard their crops, properties and lives from wild elephants whilst also protecting elephants from illegal killing, harassment or injury. Participants of this program learn the following:

• Wild elephant behaviour, ecology and biology
• A broad understanding of human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka
• Participate in a program that is providing a holistic solution to mitigate human-elephant conflict
• Help to create coexistence between people and elephants

Research activities:

• Use photographs and video clips to help monitor and evaluate orange groves
• Record the growth, condition and health of orange trees
• During the harvest season, collect information on volume, sales and income
• Update database and analyse the data

Promotional and fundraising tasks:

• Design promotional material and make short program videos
• Write press releases, articles, blogs and social media posts
• Contact media sponsors and create crowdfunding campaigns
• Promote project through social media platforms
• Prepare newsletters and update the website
• Support the elephant conservation fund through online measures