Cost and Funding

The following costs will include your accommodation, food for meals and on reserve activities. The only additional cost is a pick up fee of R700 should you need us to fetch you from Richards Bay airport. Please note how much cheaper it is if:

1. You organize yourselves into groups of four students and
2. You manage to come across for a full twelve weeks or more

Furthermore, the longer you stay the more both you and the monitoring team gains from your experience and input.

We will place pre-organised groups on the same reserve, making your time with us easier to manage and enabling you to do extra activities as a group. Your flights are for yourself to organize, book and pay for and are not included in the costs of the project. If you would like we can put you in contact with a travel agent who does flight bookings for us and will ensure you arrive with other students if you are coming as a group.

Weeks	1 student	App GBP price	Group of 4 students	App GBP price
6	R 30,096	£2,583.74	R 27,360	£2,348.86
8	R 40,128	£3,444.99	R 36,480	£3,131.81
10	R 48,279	£4,144.75	R 43,890	£3,767.96
12	R 56,430	£4,844.52	R 51,300	£4,404.11

Please note that these costs include a South African tax of 14%.

As a student a deposit of R5000 will be needed to confirm your placement on the project as opposed to a 50% deposit applicable to other volunteers. Full payment is due 4 weeks before arrical You will be responsible for paying the South African Rand (ZAR) amount at the current exchange rate on the day. The ZAR does fluctuate greatly. To give you an idea what these costs will be in your currency use the exchange calculator provided.

There are a number of potential opportunities to obtain funding for your projects; the key is to be well prepared when applying for funding and to do so as early as possible, and that means starting today! Don’t only wait on grants and scholarships, organise fund raising events and get CREATIVE!!! One student raised over ₤1000 just by shaving her hair!! Here is a list of sites which will get you started on your search, they either provide funding themselves or offer lists of potential funding options for you, please note there may be many more options out there, the onus is on you to find them.

Royal Geographic Society
See the grants for researchers and for expeditions and note the number of other smaller grants in the fine print! This is one of your best bets, read more

British Ecological Society - Undergraduate Ecological Project Support
Will supply funding to students wanting to complete work experience or projects during their summer breaks....that would be you! Also see the link to Other Funders. read more

Tropical Biology Association - database of funding organisations
Go to the funding database page. You will just need to sign up which requires no money, just a username and password. Go through the different funding options and lists which they make available. This is a very useful site. read more

Society for Conservation Biology - database on funding for African projects
Go through the lists and see if there is any funding available for UK students to come to Africa, and check all the links they provide. read more

BIRDNET - grants for projects on birds
Remember we will have a satellite device on a vulture which starts recording information for us this year already! read more

Neotropical projects - a comprehensive list of available funding
Make sure you understand the requirements and that you fit the outline. read more

Bear in mind that some of these funding sources may require you to first come and join us to get a better idea of a larger scale project you would like to complete. Then with some experience under your belt you will be able to set-up and organise a larger and more detailed expedition/project.

Easy Search and Easy Fundraising are interesting and easy options. The following websites are also extremely helpful and well worth a read.
www.grantsforindividuals.org.uk
www.governmentfunding.org.uk
www.companygiving.org.uk
www.trustfunding.org.uk