Here's details of the team at Inspire Sri Lanka

Alison Joseph

Alison has volunteered around the world for a number of years, most recently in Sri Lanka where she fell in love with the country and its elephants.  Alison decided to set up Inspire with the main objective of providing an amazing experience for volunteers - she knows what makes a good volunteer programme and all the best bits have been cherry picked here!  Alison is based in the UK but on occasions will travel to Sri Lanka for a holiday and to see the elephants.

As well as her passion for Inspire, Alison is a scuba diving instructor, horse rider and an amateur photographer.  

Aravinda Rathnayake

Aravinda has worked in the charity arena for a while now and has experience of looking after volunteers in Sri Lanka.  Aravinda's objective is to ensure that volunteers experience the best that Sri Lanka has to offer and to provide a legacy of charitable activity for the country.  Aravinda will be your main point of contact in Sri Lanka and speaks fluent English and is first aid qualified.

Aravinda is an accomplished photographer who has recently had his work shown in New York.  He is passionate about the animals and nature of his country.

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Gemma Wade

Gemma came to Sri Lanka for two months during her year out.  Once she left she knew she wanted to return so cut her travel plans short and returned to work at Inspire.  Gemma helps co-ordinate the volunteer activities and - being a qualified vet nurse - is very good at helping with the elephant health care. 

Gemma loves all animals, horse riding and has recently discovered sky diving.

Dharme & Menika

Dharme has worked with Menika for 3 years and with elephants for 40 years, he is one of few mahouts qualified to train new mahouts.  Dharme is married with 2 daughters and loves to work with our volunteers sharing with them the knowledge he has built up over his 40 year career.

Menika is around 45 years of age, she was captured from the wild at a young age when it was permissable in Sri Lanka.  She is 7' 7" tall and she loves people - especially if they feed her bananas!

Upul & Raja

Upul has been the mahout for Raja for 4 years and has worked with elephants for 13 years.  Upul is great fun to work with!

Raja is around 25 years old and was also captured from the wild.  He is an impressive 8' 11.5" tall and is a real gentle giant.  He loves people and will hold your hand with his trunk.

Ranji & Sitha

Ranji has been workin with Sitha for a few months now.  They are a perfect partnership and have bonded very well.

Sitha is around 60 years old and is a grand old lady.  She loves all fruit and is very skilled at scavenging for extra food if she has finished hers too fast.  AS Sitha is an elephant OAP we have to take extra care of her and provide her with additional vitamin rich food to keep her weight up.