Community-Focused Projects That Truly Impact Nature, Animals & People
We are affordable and we explain where your fees go!
Green Life Volunteers is a registered non-profit organization in Costa Rica. While we operate on a non-profit basis, this does not mean our services are free or that staff work without compensation. Like any non-profit organization, GLV has essential administrative expenses, including office space and staff salaries.
To provide comprehensive support to our volunteers, the initial week’s participation fee is higher than subsequent weeks. This fee covers the extensive effort we invest in your volunteer experience—including personalized communication, coordination with project partners, planning your arrival and logistics, maintaining our website, arranging homestays and project placements, booking accommodations, organizing airport transfers, and handling all the details that ensure your time with us is smooth and rewarding.
After the first week, your ongoing weekly fee goes directly to host families or the projects themselves and covers your meal costs, which are notably high in Costa Rica. For host families, this contribution provides valuable economic support—especially for host mothers, who traditionally manage the household and rarely have other sources of income. Your stay not only helps their family financially, but also supports local community life.
For those volunteering onsite—such as in turtle conservation—your fee directly supports the project’s operations and mission. It covers your meals at the project location, and any remaining amount is used for essential running costs and serves as a meaningful donation to the ongoing work.
In all cases, your contribution ensures a sustainable, well-supported experience that benefits both you as a volunteer and the Costa Rican communities and projects you serve.
Dedicated and Personal Service!
Exceptional and Personalized Service
As a small non-profit organization, Green Life Volunteers is personally managed by founder Janina Schan, along with dedicated interns, volunteers, and project staff. While we provide the same quality services as larger volunteer organizations, our approach ensures every volunteer is treated as an individual, not just a number. We are committed to matching each volunteer with impactful projects that fit their interests and needs.
Flexible Scheduling
Unlike many organizations, we do not require set start dates or minimum time commitments. Most projects allow you to start your volunteer experience at your convenience and stay for as long as you wish—even just a few days, where applicable.
Janina Schan – Owner and Founder of Green Life Volunteers
Local Expertise and Support
Our diverse team, made up of both Costa Ricans and international volunteers living in Costa Rica, deeply understands your expectations and questions. This experience allows us to provide attentive, knowledgeable support and ensure your volunteer journey is meaningful, flexible, and rewarding.
Carefully Selected Projects & Host Families
Our volunteer projects are the result of years of dedicated research and experience in Costa Rica. Each collaboration is with local, non-profit initiatives that genuinely need assistance and have a proven track record of working successfully with volunteers. All projects are led by community members and are designed to benefit people, nature, or animals—ensuring you a positive and meaningful experience.
Our homestay families are personally vetted by our local team, each with extensive experience hosting international volunteers. They are eager to welcome you and provide a warm, supportive environment, truly becoming your family away from home.
Committed to Genuine, Impactful Projects
At Green Life Volunteers, we partner exclusively with projects that are truly in need of assistance. Unlike many organizations in Costa Rica that promote initiatives primarily run by foreigners with little real benefit to local communities, we guarantee that our projects are authentic grassroots efforts. Each is locally led, non-profit, registered, and licensed, ensuring your contribution directly supports the people, animals, and environments that need it most.
We are dedicated to fostering positive, lasting impacts on the local community and ecosystems. When you volunteer with GLV, you can be confident that you are joining a genuine project where your help is truly valued and makes a meaningful difference.
The People of Green Life Volunteers
Janina Schan, founder and manager of Green Life Volunteers in Costa Rica, was born in Germany and relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 with the goal of making a meaningful difference. She holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Studies from York University, Toronto, and a Bachelor of Science degree from Germany. During her master’s research, she specialized in tropical ecology and conservation, spending six months conducting fieldwork in Costa Rica.
The concept for Green Life Volunteers emerged later, driven by her longstanding commitment to conservation and community development. After completing her master’s research, Janina began working in Costa Rica’s tourism and volunteer sectors before establishing Green Life Volunteers in early 2012. Her vision was to create an organization that supports local communities by connecting volunteers with host families and projects that have tangible, positive impacts on people, animals, and the environment.
A core principle of Green Life Volunteers is affordability. Having witnessed other organizations exploit the volunteer model for profit, Janina is committed to ensuring that Green Life Volunteers provides meaningful opportunities without financial exploitation.
Janina has a deep passion for animal welfare and recognized the pressing need to support abandoned and stray animals in her community. In response, she founded and continues to manage the only dog and cat rescue project in Puerto Jimenez and the Osa Peninsula.
Alongside her volunteer commitments, Janina works full-time as a website developer and online marketer for a hotel in Puerto Jimenez, which serves as her primary source of income in Costa Rica. Green Life Volunteers remains a labor of love—while it does not generate significant income, it fulfills her dedication to helping others and making a meaningful impact in her community and the country she has called home for over seven years.
Janina’s global experience is extensive; before settling in Costa Rica, she lived in New Zealand, spent six months traveling through Southeast Asia and India, lived in Sweden for a year, and spent three years in Canada. She first came to Costa Rica for her master’s research and has since made it her permanent home.
Current and Past Interns of Green Life Volunteers
Jian, June -July 2016
Jian was GLVs intern in May - June - July of 2016. He did an amazing job, and helped mainly with video editing and GLV promotions on University and Volunteer platforms. He was an amazing intern - and he enjoyed his stay very much. Read his full review here.
Carlies, 2015 - 2016
Carlies is here together with Thyrza through their Tourism Degree on the HZ Unviersity of Applied Sciences in Vissingen, the Netherlands. They're staying for a 7 months internship at GLV. She's helping with all aspects of GLV's office and administrative work, and is also writing her major thesis on the topics of volunteering. Her main focus in GLV is writing new website content, making handbooks for each project, and promoting projects at Universities around the world. Thyrza and Carlies have also been fostering dogs and Carlies even adopted a doggie and are taking her back to the Netherlands.
Thyrza, 2015 - 2016
Thyrza is here together with Carlies through their Tourism Degree on the HZ Unviersity of Applied Sciences in Vissingen, the Netherlands. They're staying for a 7 months internship at GLV. Thyrza is helping with all aspects of GLV's office and administrative work, and is also writing her major thesis on the topics of volunteering. For that she's been interviewing various volunteers. She also helped GLV a lot with making beautiful project videos and with general promotions of our projects on different websites.
Guanho, 2014 - 2015
Guanho was an intern in 2014-2015 through the Tourism Degree on the HZ Unviersity of Applied Sciences in Vissingen, the Netherlands. He was doing his 7 months internship also together with Kaho. They've been helping with all aspects of GLV's office and administrative work, and also wrote their major thesis on the topics of volunteering. Guanho's focus was the projects.
Kaho, 2014 - 2015
Kaho was an intern in 2014-2015 through the Tourism Degree on the HZ Unviersity of Applied Sciences in Vissingen, the Netherlands. He was doing his 7 months internship also together with Guanho. They've been helping with all aspects of GLV's office and administrative work, and also wrote their major thesis on the topics of volunteering. Kaho's focus was student volunteering.
Allison, 2015
Allison spent 3 months in Puerto Jimenez and helped mainly with the dog and cat rescue project. She was a real asset to GLV since she took off a lot of work of Janina Schan's shoulders and helped with many aspects of Green Life Volunteers' dog and cat rescue project. She's now back in the USA was an adopted dog that used to be a street dog for years in Puerto Jimenez.
Avery, 2014
Avery was an excellent intern for 2 months with Green Life Volunteers in 2014. She was helping with all administrative aspects and promoting of projects.
Abigail, 2014
Abigail helped for a short time in 2014 with making of videos. This was a new aspect of GLV and she was the first intern to have helped with that aspect of GLV.
Judy, 2013
Judy was with Green Life Volunteers in 2013 and was one of the first long term interns of GLV. She helped with promoting GLVs projects in the world, and did a great job at it.