.:VOLUNTEER

HELP International is currently receiving applications for fall volunteer internship programs of four to eight week periods.

The current 2009 internships are nearing completion. The first group of three (from Iran, Ontario and Manitoba) ran from late April to end July. Our second internship period of one month with interns from Paris ( France), Regina, and a first nations person from the local area will be completed at the end of August.

Outdoor volunteer intern positions are currently being considered for the months of September and/or October.  During this period the focus of a very small team will be on the following forestry and zero waste activities:

1)      Silviculture/Forestation

a.       assess plantings carried out in 2009 within a 200 km radius of Weyburn (three main projects).

b.      carry out field visits for forestry planting plans with landowners and City of Weyburn for the 2010 forestry season.

c.       winterize HELP's 70,000 outdoor tree nursery: to include experimental low cost winterizing methodology to promote winter covers for deer and snow pack protection and tree seedling insulation against severe cold. The focus will be on developing a strategy/system that minimizes logistics and labour.

d.      transplant 18-month old hybrid poplar cutting/seedlings from a plot near the hamlet of Ralph to five gallon pails to create stock for the 2010 plantings.

2)      Zero Waste Construction - We want to save a one-story bungalow house set for demolition by:

a.       removing it from its foundation

b.      separating it into the two smaller cabins it once was.

c.       removing its flat roof and installing a vaulted ceiling/A-frame rafter roof.

d.      installing improved windows and applying new siding.

e.       moving the refurbished cabins from the current location to HELP’s Center for Ecology Research and Training.

3)      Process current waste products being received at HELP from the community

a.       mill and deliver to market granulated Styrofoam

b.      sort waste lumber and cut up non-usable lumber for resale as bio fuel

c.       operate an experimental new motor-driven paper mill.

d.      develop a new, larger fiberboard press.

e.       move grass clippings and leaves deliveries to the composting area.

f.        install empty silicone/tar tubes and other materials around tree seedlings to winter-proof against deer and rodents.

HELP International

Green Technologies Volunteer Internship Program

Our program involves a one- to six-month volunteer internship program at HELP International Center for Ecology Research and Training at Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada.  The program is open to both Canadian and international interns.  

The internship provides aggressive on-the-job training in a wide range of green technologies, appropriate technologies, modern technologies, combined with on-the-job training in logistics and performance management systems.  Though the program covers a wide range of green and modern technologies relating to forestry and recycling technologies (depending upon the season) the program focuses on HELP's mandate of developing and modeling several new techniques, methodologies and simple new technologies for manufacturing new products or buildings from waste, and for proliferating trees at low to zero cost.

HELP has pioneered many new zero waste technologies and forestry applications in phytoremediation in Canada and Kenya, Africa and has many more such developments under way. 

The normal annual season for this internship (which has been running for 15 years since HELP's inception) runs from April to October. A winter internship (as noted above) is being developed and has positions available for our third internship session of 2009 beginning September 1 and October 1.  Interns choose periods between one month and six months for their internship. 

This environmental internship program is considered the most aggressive and challenging in Canada and is not for everyone. We look for physically/emotionally/psychologically robust people who are service-driven and who have significant life experience to show they can handle serious challenges and steep learning curves.  A farm background or environmental sciences background is an asset but not essential.

Many interns find the physical demands, the sometimes hot/dry/windy climate (depending upon the year), and the wide diversity of programming very challenging for them.   Many interns thrive in this environment. Others plan to come for four months but become saturated (learning too much in a short period) and finish their internships after one or two months.  HELP does not prejudice against interns who are in this position but simply assesses their level of achievement for the time they remained at HELP.  While some thrive in this environment, others with little or no work experience find the program too challenging for them.   HELP is therefore very selective from the people who apply to this program.

The program looks for mature, hard working individuals who can handle adverse climatic and work conditions, and a wide range of learning opportunities.  The program can involve the use of over one hundred technologies from operating a car and truck, tractors, cultivation equipment, mowers, mills, simple appro-tech brick press, roof tile form, fiberboard maker, tree planter, tree mulch applicator, power tools: wood saws, drills, presses, metal chop saw, arc and oxy-acetylene welders, plus traditional technologies such as mud and thatch house building, traditional tool making and stone carving. This all forms part of an understanding of where we have come from and what decisions our societies have made along the way that brought us to where we are.  Armed with this in-depth understanding, we can make confident new informed decisions for helping communities develop ways of living sustainably into the future. 

So the people we need are those who can handle great diversity in the program and those who can handle and thrive on a steep learning curve. The interns must be able to be willing to be corrected several dozens of times due to trying so many new things.  Making small mistakes and being corrected is normal and the intern needs to be patient with themselves as well as with their coach and their host organization.       

Interns pay their own airfare to and from Regina, Saskatchewan. Accommodation, food and a small volunteer stipend of $5/day is provided.  Certificates are presented for technologies mastered while in the program.