Honing skills and helping to make a difference to the natural world as a volunteer

The past few days have been Volunteers’ Week and we’d like to take this opportunity to offer our sincere thanks to all those committed volunteers, past and present, who have done so much to help us further our work – thank you!

Here we share a few thoughts from Ella-Louise, one of our current hard-working volunteers …

Hi, my name is Ella and I’ve been a volunteer at EIA for a little over a year now.

While I have always been an environmentalist at heart, it wasn’t where I began my career, instead opting to undertake a degree in chemistry. It was only on completing my degree I realised that, while I loved the subject, career-wise it just wasn’t for me.

Instead I applied, and was accepted, to do a Masters in Anthropology, Environment and Development at UCL, which allowed to me to explore the relationship between communities and the environment.

Volunteering at EIA has given me the chance to a be a part of several projects and, with no two days the same, there is always something new and interesting going on.

I can be designing maps one day, only to be updating illegal wildlife seizure records the next. It brings me great pride to see some of my work being used to help create the hard-hitting reports and videos for which EIA is so renowned.

Being a volunteer at EIA has allowed me to become a better researcher and analyst, but most importantly it has shown me what goes into producing positive change for the environment.

Moving forward, I am looking to pursue a career in sustainability, with a focus on how communities can facilitate positive change in the environment – and I’m confident the skills and knowledge I have learnt at EIA will be an asset in my future endeavours.