The project operates in a very challenging environment. This requires people who are resilient, flexible, collaborative and most of all have a keen sense of adventure. The type of people who will thrive in our environment show the following sorts of skills and traits:

• Ability to work with people from a range of different backgrounds with a willingness to both learn (professional & personally) and teach others.

• Ability to operate in a project environment where team members are managed in line with this. Individuals are assigned a placement brief that lists the major accountabilities that they must achieve. Their work is tracked through a task list that they report on on a weekly basis. This is a more high pressure environment that has deadlines and milestones that require flexibility and commitment to complete on schedule.

• Ability to deliver without all the services found in corporate/government organisations such as IT, HR, legal and financial - Our People need to be very resourceful and able to optimise the available resources.

• All our projects aim to use their limited funding to get value for money so we are very ‘no frills’ on accommodation, travel and transport. Volunteers need to be prepared to share accommodation in guest houses, use public transport when in Cairns and travel on rough roads.

• We operate in a ‘community’ environment which does not necessarily adhere to corporate values so volunteers may encounter instances of discrimination, harassment and limited observance of core values: teamwork, integrity and performance so they need to be able to focus on resolving problems and conflicts that occur and concentrate on how objectives can still be achieved.

• The project vision and framework are already defined and have limited flexibility so volunteers need to be prepared to support this agenda which sometimes means putting aside their personal ideas and focusing on providing practical support in areas of their expertise only.

• The organisation is experiencing rapid growth and trying new things so there will be sudden directional changes and volunteers need to be flexible and resilient and prepared to help change direction when required.

• The environment is unpredictable so volunteers need to be adventurous and prepared for a challenging experience.

• Volunteers may not always be located in a remote community.