Volunteer Service in Education

In the education projects, you will help as a teacher assistant, with babies, children and adolescents from 01 to 17 years old. Your main task is to teach the children according to your abilities, interests, and educational background. The work schedule is from Monday to Friday, at least 4 hours a day. Schools are closed on weekends.

Volunteers mainly give English lessons (basic vocabulary like colors, numbers, fruit, animals, etc.), art, sports, or give computer courses. There is also the possibility to teach other subjects, depending on your knowledge and interests (for example, math, geography, etc.). As a volunteer, you are also responsible for preparing your lessons. New ideas and suggestions for the teaching structure are welcomed. You have to take into account that school material is scarce and, frequently, even basic material is lacking to give the lessons (for example, pencils, notebooks, calculators, books, etc.). Please, focus on your work with lots of creativity and initiative. If your trip budget and luggage allow you, you will achieve marvelous things bringing this kind of material from your home country or you can buy it in Cusco.

Take into account your high level of responsibility and always be a role model for the children. Team spirit, good humor and tolerance are the most important abilities in these projects.

The school year runs from March to December and vacations from January to early March.

You can do your volunteer service in:

Public primary school: It is located in the city, nearby the family home (accommodation). Children are from 6 to 12 years old. This school has morning and afternoon schedules. The school year is from March to December.

Public primary school in a rural community: It is located 60 minutes from Cusco. There is public transportation every 10 minutes. This project has 120 students. The volunteer schedule is from 8:30 to 13:30 from Monday to Friday.

Public kindergarten: We support 03 public kindergartens with children from 03 to 05 years old, children come from low-income families. The three of them are located in the city near your accommodations. The school year is from March to December.

School reinforcing center: This project is located in the city and works all year long. Children attend after classes to be helped with homework and be taken care of and fed during the afternoon, from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm, while their parents are at work. Children come from low-income families and some from dysfunctional families.

School reinforcing center in a rural community: It is located 45 minutes from Cusco. This project goes further than teaching. It creates and strengthens bonds that link the volunteers with children so the volunteers can share their knowledge with the children. It is a support project that combines academic and social issues, creating opportunities for learning while accompanying the children in order to prevent school failure. It is a preemptive project, in order to find solutions and change the future of many children.

The volunteer schedule will depend on the time of the year and if the project has enough volunteers to lengthen the working schedule. In general, it is open every day from Monday to Friday from 3:00 pm to 6:30 pm, during the school year that runs from March to December.

Vacation period: It is from January to early March. During this time, the schedule will be exclusively in the afternoon. It is an opportunity to do ludic and educational activities that allow children to quit the monotony and recreate with activities like: drama, handicrafts, art, educational games, etc. Sometimes, we do recreational activities with the children, i.e. on Saturdays, we go to museums, hiking, etc. It is important to understand that the working schedule will be flexible and could vary from 3 to 5 hours every day (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday).

School for the blind: This project is located in the city. It is public Catholic school for blind babies, girls, and boys from 0 to 18 years old. This project does its work in the following areas:

• Early stimulation
• Elementary school
• Primary school
• Inclusive education
• Sensorial stimulation
• Physical therapy
• Music
• Haptic art
• Orientation and mobility
• Psycho motility
• Ability for daily life

SUMMARY

Volunteer Service in Orphanages

Currently, we collaborate with 03 orphanages, the minimum term of volunteer service is 04 weeks. It is important to take into account the high level of responsibility and always being a good role model for the children. Team spirit, good humor and tolerance are the most important abilities in these projects.

Orphanage of boys:

In this orphanage, boys and adolescents are hosted. The ages are from 05 to 18 years old. The volunteer schedules during the school year are in the afternoon. On vacations, they are in the morning and afternoon.

Orphanage of girls:

In this orphanage, girls and adolescents are hosted. The ages are from 05 to 18 years old. The volunteer schedules during the school year from March to December are in the afternoon. On vacations, they are in the morning and afternoon.

Co-ed orphanage:

In this orphanage, babies, girls, boys and adolescents are hosted. The ages are from 0 to 18 years old. The volunteer service in this project is admitted only for volunteers over 20 years old and minimum duration of 08 weeks. The volunteer schedules in this project are in the morning and afternoon.

SUMMARY

Volunteer Service in Women Empowering

1.1 Volunteer service in the home for mothers and children

This project hosts women and their children who have suffered domestic violence to keep them away from violence they suffered at home, usually coming from their husbands.

The volunteer schedule can be in the morning or afternoon.

Activities for the volunteers:

• Collaborate to the achievement of quality care for the children, while the hosted mothers work or study (Reinforcing workshops, Literacy, Languages, Drama, Painting, Handicrafts, Spirituality, Sports, among others).
• Support in action aimed to decreasing the levels of violence of the hosted mothers and children (Strengthen the AFFECTION AND GENTLENESS) between mother and child.
• Support actively in the product workshops: Bakery, Pastries, Cooking, Handicrafts, Knitting, Making clothes, among others.
•  Support improving the selling points of the products and collaborate in the sales.
•  Support in capacitation in the Cost-Benefit analysis of the products supplied to the market.
•  Prepare women in economic entrepreneurship and facilitate the means for this goal.
•  Support actively in the sales of the products.
•  Others as personal initiative of volunteers.

1.2 Empowering women artists and artisans:

We collaborate with the project Totemiq, which aims to empower women artists and artisans in the city of Cusco who are looking for equality in the working conditions. The volunteers will learn the traditional techniques of pre-Columbus and Colonial Cusquenian artistic production. The project has as additional objective to revalue these techniques that are getting lost in time.

Activities for the volunteers:

• Support in the production of ceramics, sculpture, and traditional techniques (colonial gild, glassed ceramics).
• Package and ship the pieces.
• Assistance in the workshops (support in the production, photography and cleaning up, shopping and contact with providers).
• Support in communication strategies and marketing on line.
• Translation (project Art Trail Cusco).

SUMMARY

Volunteer Service in Sports

The volunteer can help the instructors in the different disciplines like: basketball, football, volleyball, karate, taekwondo, gymnastics, etc. Give their knowledge of the sports.

The volunteer schedule during the school year from March to December is in the afternoon. On vacations from January 15 to February 15, in the morning shift.

SUMMARY

Volunteer Service in Health Care

It is in one institution dedicated to health care service, with capacity of diagnosis and resolving in clinical treatment, surgical and rehabilitation.

There are two areas for these volunteer service:

• Volunteer service as medical school student or professional. In this volunteer service, the volunteers help medical doctors and nurses in the caring for patients, help in therapy of children with physical disabilities who are hosted in the hospital.
• Vocational volunteer service. In this volunteer service, the volunteers take care of the children with physical disabilities or help in the administration and procedures.

The minimum time of volunteer service is 04 weeks. There two schedules of volunteer service:

• From 8:00 am to 12:00 pm.
• From 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm.

SUMMARY

Volunteer Service with Animals

The animal shelter opens all year long. The schedule for volunteer service could be in the morning or afternoon. This shelter protects turtles, monkeys, llamas, native birds, bears, wildcats, parrots, macaws, wild boars, predators, and other species.

Activities for volunteers:

• Support cleaning up the outskirts of the cages.
• Collaborate in the preparation of diets for some animals.
• Collaborate in the sanitation work, cleaning parasites and healing, washing the turtles.
• Collaborate in the making of nests and burrows for some animals.
• Do gardening and ornamentation of the shelter.

SUMMARY