The conservation and community project gives volunteers the special opportunity to work with community development, reforestation and help improve the infrastructure of local schools.

The mission of Great Aves (the charity of which You Volunteer is a part of), is to improve education in rural areas. We see this as not just being confined to the classrooms for local students, but an education process for the communities moving from one way of life to another.

We take great care not to purely donate resources, put to have the local communities lead projects and contribute to our activities. By helping educate the local community to farm more efficiently (which protects the environment), find alternative work to logging, and help them understand why the Amazon needs to be conserved, we can more effectively protect the rainforest, and give local communities a fairer chance in modern business. By working with the local communities, rather than against or inspite of (without their involvement), the volunteers work is much more effective.

To achieve our goal of improving education in rurual areas, and conserving the Amazon in the process, the project is split into three areas. Volunteers work with; local communities helping to develop sustainable business ideas, with reforestation and sustainable agriculture, and in the schools helping to improve sports and teaching facilities. The volunteers week be divided into these three areas. Volunteers will work for around 5 hours each day, and their time equally split between indoor and outdoor activities. Work starts at 9am and finishes at 4pm with a 2 hour lunch

Community Development
We are constantly approached by local community members with business ideas away from logging and non-sustainable farming (farming which deforests and introduces non-native plants). Volunteers help the community members through the process from idea to reality. Using carefully designed development forms, volunteers help develop a workable business plan, and then help to execute this plan. Volunteers focus their work on helping to sell products (creating street stalls, finding buyers, internet selling, and helping to form and run cooperatives), create an exciting brand (marketing through posters and websites etc, developing packaging) and help to develop the product (finding cheaper supplies, and improving the product.

Reforestation and sustainable agriculture
You Volunteer works with two Ecuadorian based charities to help reforest the amazon and develop sustainable agriculture. Volunteers work with the Runa foundation, which works with community members to develop a polyculture (more than one crop) agriculture system, which uses the rainforest and its plants, rather than replacing them. Volunteers work with community members on their land to plant the Guayusa tea plants, and maintain the crops.

Once a week volunteers work at the Botanical Gardens in Puyo, a site which has been reclaimed from pasture back into plants and trees native to the primary rainforest. Volunteers help develop and maintain the gardens, and learn about the techniques involved in reforestation.

The techniques learned from these foundations are implemented in a deforested section of rainforest selected by You Volunteer for reforestation. Volunteers work on the complete reforestation process from removal of non-native species to planting native trees and plants.

Improving school sports and teaching facilities.
Alongside the work being done by the Arajuno Road Project (which teaches in the schools where the community project is based), volunteers have the opporunity to develop the school facilities, from installing water systems for bathrooms and kitchens, have available drinking water, building store rooms other buildings, maintaining the current school buildings and grounds, developing school agricultural projects, and finding funding for sports, art, music, computing and general teaching equipment.