Collective responsibilities for volunteers and interns include, but are not limited to:

• Collecting turtle nesting data for our personal data records during our morning surveys on Gerakas Beach at 7 am every day.
• Help monitor turtle nesting beaches and participate in beach litter picks.
• Create and organise research projects and come up with new ideas for our information center to help us engage with members of the public.
• Welcome and educate visitors to our information center while working in our gift shop, which supports local businesses and where 100% of proceeds and donations go to support our mission.
• Participate in fundraising events for the center and support daily turtle center operations to help support our dream of becoming a fully operational sea turtle rescue center.
• Help our organic community garden and olive tree saplings grow.
• Contribute to our focus on the endangered Caretta caretta (loggerhead sea turtle) population and our rescued tortoises and terrapins that live at our center.
• Responsibilities and activities will vary depending on the time of your placement and how many volunteers/interns are at our center.

Please note that we do not currently offer any veterinary work because our rescue center is not ready to take any injured sea turtles until our rehabilitation building is completed, so we do not have any sea turtles to take care of, and we need more funding and donations to help us reach this goal.

Things to keep in mind, to manage your expectations:

• We cannot guarantee that you will see and interact with a sea turtle or turtle hatchlings as they are wild animals and our work does not involve interacting with them directly.
• We request that you work at least a few hours at the turtle center and in the gift shop where you will welcome and educate visitors every day. You will then have the rest of the day to use at your leisure. A typical schedule involves rotations of the morning shift (9 am-12 pm), afternoon shift (12 pm-4 pm), and evening shift (4 pm-8 pm). Shift working hours may change depending on the number of volunteers/interns available, and shifts are always open to flexibility and changes to suit volunteer/intern’s preferences.
• Our work hours are flexible so you will have some personal time to explore the island, for example a bus runs into Zante town daily.
• We do morning surveys every day at 7 am and we expect you to participate in at least 2 morning surveys every week to help experience and collect turtle nesting data that we use for our records and reports. Please note we do not have the authority to go beyond the public barrier. Yannis (Founder & Owner of the Zante Turtle Center) leads us down to the beach and explains the process of turtle nesting.
• You must be able to tolerate with an open mind the challenging but rewarding work environment.
• We take our work very seriously and it is very hard work in many ways, with busy days, high temperatures, and demanding conservation responsibilities. We would like to emphasize that it is a very rigorous program, not a party holiday. We expect volunteers/interns to commit themselves to the program. You get out of the experience what you put into it.
• We do not tolerate any forms of abuse towards members of staff or other volunteers/interns.
• We request that you be fluent in conversational English as this is the main language used to communicate with members of staff and volunteers/interns.
• You will inevitably interact with cats while working with us at the center, and around the island.