General Information

We will be volunteering in South America in Peru and Ecuador from the end of June till the end of October.

In Ecuador we start just south of Quito at Santa Martha Rescue [1]. We will be spending 2 weeks here at a center that rescues a wide variety of wild animals from unhealthy and illegal situations. We will work 6 days per week feeding the animals twice per day, cleaning and improving facilities.

Then west of Quito in the foothills of the Andes we go to Bua de los Tsachilas, one of the 6 indigenous communities Yanapuma [2] is working with (focused on sustainable development). During the 1 week cultural exchange we will be living in this indigenous community. We will learn about their culture and they will get an opportunity to learn about foreigners, which is helpful because they want to promote tourism in their area.

Afterwards we go to the coast (Cabo San Francisco [3]) for one month. Here we will do a variety of volunteer work, including construction (bamboo), education (English and environmental) and work at the laboratory they are setting up. The community here lives under conditions of extreme poverty.

Finally, in Peru we will be working for a month in Huancayo (Tinkuy Peru [4]), one of the poorest cities in Peru. We will mainly be working at the mountain school, teaching kids from ages 2-14. This will not only include teaching various subjects, but also doing sports, teaching proper hygienic skills and going on excursions with the children and most of all giving them love and attention.

We picked these 4 projects out of a huge list based on different criteria: mostly the importance and effectiveness of the volunteer project (e.g. working in poor areas), but also the location (the projects shouldn't be too far apart), our own interests (e.g. working with animals and children), our abilities, and doing different kinds of work.

Of course, we will try to see as much as possible of Ecuador en Peru in the limited amount of spare time during and between the different volunteer projects.