Originally a hunting ground and private sanctuary for the Portuguese monarchy in the 1700’s, Tapada Nacional de Mafra currently serves as a protected animal and nature preserve and is home to deer and wild boar, exotic birds and reptiles, and a rich collection of Mediterranean flora.
Run by a public cooperative of institutions and other organizations like the City Hall, Tapada de Mafra is always open to voluntary work and to those that are willing to help and actively work on the preservation of nature for the next generations. Tapada de Mafra had some hard historical events in the previous years like a big fire in 2003 that destroyed 70% of its woods, extinguished local communities of wolves, and almost made them close the park.
Today, more than one decade after this catastrophic event, it is a place where schools and companies coexist, whether to visit and learn in this natural habitat or to do internal meetings and team building activities, including volunteer work, cleaning up and recovering its infrastructure.
Separated into three groups, the Portuguese office team spent one long morning at Tapada’s park helping their own team.
Focusing on a section of the park that was infected by invasive species of trees and bushes and cleaning up the soil to prevent unwanted fires, preparing walls for restoration in the old hunting pavilions (nowadays, transformed into useful convention rooms for companies), and removing fences and preparing a reserved area for the free circulation of wild boars and deers - these were the tasks we signed up to do.
“It was great to see the team lining up as a chain and making one hard task like cleaning up the wood floor turning into something collaborative, fun and easy. People were chatting and smiling while passing logs from one hand to the other. We cleaned it up in less than 1 hour!”
All teams had the opportunity to work on these three tasks in order to get to know a different corner of this natural environment. It was good to line up and put all hands to work in the process of recovering and preserving this space for future generations - the young students that were lining up at the park’s entrance for a visit and also the local families of boars and birds that we could feel and listen everywhere around us.
The morning ended up with a quick visit to a calmer area of the park where animals live freely sharing the same space.
“I was not expecting to see the animals so up close... it was really cool to take some time and appreciate the wild boars and Francisco, the deer!”
As a company, Wodify is committed to always give back to our community - wherever we are.
That’s why, every quarter, we give one percent of our time volunteering, one percent of our services and one percent of our profit to local charities and entities. We love getting involved, so if there is a project you need help with, feel free to give us a shout!
