Volunteer in Fiji
Meaningful impact and adventure in a Pacific paradise.
Fiji offers plenty of spectacular locations to explore, swim, snorkel and hike. But more importantly, you’ll assist with childhood development, public health, and water security efforts through teaching, working and living in this beautiful island community.
Volunteer in Fiji
As a GVI volunteer in Fiji, you can take part in one of our community development volunteering programs. On one of these volunteering programs, you’ll assist members of the local community with early childhood development, global public health and gender equality initiatives.
Each of our Fiji volunteering projects is aligned to one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. They’re also compliant with our ethical and safety guidelines.
GVI’s Fiji volunteering opportunities
Choose from a wide variety of volunteer work in Fiji when volunteering with GVI. Below we’ve created an overview of the type of work you can do while participating in one of our Fiji volunteering programs. You could:
- Support early childhood education by volunteering with local children, focusing on numeracy and literacy development
- work on community development initiatives, gaining a deeper insight into – and the privilege to learn from – local Fijian culture.
- work on public health initiatives such as supporting community health workers with spreading awareness about infant care and nutrition.
In Fiji, you can join one of our volunteer or internship programs, working with our local partners in community development, on one of the following projects:
Filter programs
Contribute to ethical community development projects led by locals.
The best of both worlds – immersive local experiences and meaningful community work.
Use your unique skills and expertise to support community development projects.
The adventure of a lifetime while making an impact with a group of like-minded teens.
Generate solutions to help solve community challenges through research projects.
Turn your passion into your profession with a three-month placement at an NGO.
Make the most of our unique programs with these exclusively curated local adventure and wellness experiences.
Why it matters
Our community development programs in Fiji aim to assist local communities by actively engaging with important issues that impact their quality of life, such as access to fresh water, access to childhood education, and access to public health information.
You’ll contribute to project work that helps assess environmental impact, enrich available education, and solve basic infrastructure issues through improvement initiatives. Giving you in-depth field experience and a chance to contribute to the development of a community, while living as a guest within the community.
Every GVI program is planned and implemented in collaboration with local partner organisations – creating solutions that will have a lasting impact and can eventually be maintained without external support.
Volunteering with children in Fiji
Quality education is one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 4: Quality Education) – which aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”
GVI People’s community development programs in Fiji use this SDG as a framework for all volunteer or internship work with children. You can either participate in a general volunteering program or choose to focus on one of these specialties:
Teaching in Fiji
Spend your time teaching and organising educational activities for children. In addition to planning and delivering learning through play modules, you’ll also get the opportunity to facilitate short courses for adults – including local caregivers and community health workers – communicating the importance of early childhood development and how children can be supported in their development at home.
You will also expand your TEFL experience.
Early childhood development in Fiji
You will develop and deliver sessions for children under 5 years of age that support the development of skills in key developmental areas: cognitive, emotional, social and physical. You’ll do this mainly through educational gameplay, where the goal is to develop key competencies such as mathematical fluency and comprehension skills. Arts and crafts, dances, and sports sessions might also be conducted, to assist the children with developing hand-eye coordination.
Public health
Our Fiji health sector support programs aim to promote health and well-being in local communities. You can choose to join a volunteer or internship program. You will work closely with our community partner, the Community Health Workers organisation (formerly called the Nasi ni Koro, or Village Nurses).
Based on weekly meetings with the district nurse, who prioritises which areas of focus are needed in each village, you will create interactive workshops on topics ranging from prenatal nutrition to CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), and everything in between.
Water security
This program gives you the chance to work on the very important issue of water security, focused specifically on water scarcity, rainwater harvesting, waste management, recycling initiatives, and the relationship between water and health – all with a view towards ensuring communities have the infrastructure, knowledge and resources to implement sustainable solutions to these pressing needs.
Our Fiji community development volunteers and interns live and work in the district of Dawasamu, on the main island of Viti Levu. In comparison to other parts of Fiji, this district is relatively untouched by tourism. As an invited member of the local community, you will have the privilege of experiencing traditional culture, custom and hospitality.
From this base, you also have access to many of Fiji’s popular sights and adventure activities. Use your weekends to:
- Visit Fiji’s capital, Suva.
- Hike through the Coco-i-Suva rainforest reserve.
- Relax in one of the many coral coast resorts.
- Go white-water rafting on the upper Navua River.
- Visit the historic town of Levuka, the former capital of Fiji, on the island of Ovalau.
- Visit the botanical garden at the base of the Sleeping Giant Mountain in the town of Nadi.
GVI’s programs are compliant with rigorous ethical guidelines. We employ on the ground ethics officers to ensure that our projects follow rigorous and current best practices and standards. We are governed by our ten ethical principles and five human empowerment principles. We also hold a badge of ethics – our dedication to continuously reflect on and improve our policies and practices.
Take note that our early childhood development programs don’t allow volunteers to work in orphanages. We don’t support orphanage volunteering or donations to orphanages. For more information, see our stance on orphanage volunteering. We support ChildSafe, a global child protection initiative, and regularly review our Child and Vulnerable Adult Protection policy.
Please note that as part of our child and vulnerable adult protection policy, each volunteer, intern and staff member must complete child protection training before starting on any project that involves interaction with children. All our volunteers, interns and staff are also required to complete a police background check before they can sign up to any of our programs.
Each of our programs is aligned to one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
You can read about the work we’ve done with the help of volunteers and interns like you in our Impact and Ethics Report.
Who can join a community development program in Fiji?
You can!
Anyone over 18 (including college students and gap year students), people on a career break, and older adults can join our Fiji community development volunteering or internship programs at just about any time throughout the year.
If you are under 18 and want to join a community development volunteering program, we offer a wide selection of opportunities all over the world. You can find more information on our teens volunteering page.
Who qualifies as a community development volunteer or intern?
You do! We don’t require any pre-existing qualifications or certifications.
All our volunteers, interns and staff are required to complete a police background check before they can sign up to any of our programs.
Is it safe?
Extremely safe. We take every precaution to make sure our participants live and work safely, no matter where they are in the world. We have trained support staff on hand 24 hours a day to ensure that all participants across all our programs are well taken care of.
You can speak directly to one of our enrolment officers or alumni, who can answer any and all questions you might have about life in Fiji or life on the GVI base.
Who will I live with?
GVI volunteers in Fiji live in shared bures (traditional huts). You will live and work with other volunteers, interns and GVI staff from all around the world. Living in an international community such as this with like-minded individuals is why many of our participants leave our programs with life-long friends.
I’m interested. What are the next steps?
Welcome! Click here to enquire or apply. One of our trusty enrolment officers will take it from there.
Make the most of our unique programs with these exclusively curated local adventure and wellness experiences.
