Ayni - Volunteer Peru

Piura, Peru

“Ayni is a very small grassroots organization based in a tiny shantytown in Piura in northern Peru. It.s founder Margie Orsi, a local high school teacher from Markham, Ontario Canada began the organization in 2001. What started out as one individual.s small and innocent attempt at impacting positive change on a tiny part of this planet, quickly turned into an organized group effort of dedicated volunteers from around the world.

The word Ayni comes from an old native culture called Aymara based in Peru & Bolivia, and it means ‘Today for you, tomorrow for me.’ Ayni is based on the idea of reciprocity; working together as group for the group, a sharing of ideas and resources, helping one another and being responsible for each other and our environment.

The majority of the work in Ayni takes place in a small and very poor rural town called Alto de los More. Volunteers teach English in an elementary school composed of about 250 children and 7 underequipped classrooms. The school is government run, and though Ayni is not associated with the government in any way, it operates within the school as an independent organization that offers assistance to the teachers, children and the families of the children within this community.

In addition to teaching in the classrooms and playing with as well as activating these understimulated children during their recreation time, Ayni volunteers take a personal interest in the students as well as their families and support them in any way they can. The work is not restricted to just the school area but rather extended into the community, where Ayni has set up various developing projects with the local villagers.”