Connecting you to free and low fee Volunteer Abroad Opportunities

Free Volunteering in Cusco

The school of Aldea Yanapay is one of those rare exceptions where words like love and peace are lived out every day. Aldea Yanapay offers free volunteering in Cusco and works to alleviate the social injustices faced by the children of Cusco. The school provides a haven of love, creativity, and learning for the youth of the city.

Students come to our after-school program from various public and private schools. In the Aldea they complete their homework, use the library and its materials, and also receive an arts-based education (theatre, music, painting, etc.) and other courses which are important in everyday life: world cultures and religions, ecology, sexual education, reading. The school is open to all forms of cultural expression, such as meditation, massage, capoeira, circus, etc. As a result, people come from all over the world, everyone with something to give.

One of our goals is self sufficiency and for that reason we founded the Cafe Restaurant Yanapay. This is a place with international food, art, couches, and occasional theatre or live music. All of the money from the restaurant goes to sustain our social projects.

We also operate a hostal (Hostal Magico) in Cusco, in which all profits fund our social projects.

Unlike many other volunteer projects, there is NO FEE to volunteer with Aldea Yanapay. We greet volunteers for any amount of time- a day or a year. If you have a skill to share or a class to teach, or you want to stay for a long time and help with future projects, please join us.

Volunteer in Peru with Cooperarperu

Hello,

We are a NGO located in beautiful Cusco Peru called COOPERARPERU. It supports the lovely children of the small impoverished community Tankarpata near Cusco. We also offer you an opportunity to volunteer in Peru.

20 minutes from the touristic world heritage city centre of Cusco the community Tankarpata is located without access to drinkable water, infrastructure, education, health-support and trade. Alcoholism and violence are the daily routine of the majority of the children living in this community. Infected by parasites from the water they drink, without awareness of personal hygiene and nutrition these children grow up in a surreal environment of countryside and garbage.

Cooperarperu offers these children education, health-care, hygiene, social skills, environmental awareness, creativity and many other fields. Many times the children do not know their date of birth so we organize birthday parties for all of them on elected days. We offer small travels to historic places and sports-events so that the children get to know their own culture and learn new skills.

Moreover we offer workshops for the mothers with themes like familiar violence, hygiene, family planification, to sell their handcrafts and psychological help.

We are 5 people working frequently on the project, 4 of us are volunteers and we work for 65 children from the age of 2-15.

Run by the national and international volunteers the project always struggled with the finances. To make it more sustainable we created la “Caja Magica”, a cheap hostel in Cusco, related to the project where travelers and volunteers can rent a cheap , nice bed, settle in a familiar atmosphere and support the project financially and directly with their ideas and skills. Volunteers should have a basic level of Spanish to communicate with the children and can include whatever skills they have.

links: www.cooperarperu.org
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tuamigodeviaje/
www.facebook.com/lacajamagica
http://hostalcajamagica.com/

If you are going to do some hiking in the Mountains around Cusco and need some equipment, check out www.e-outdoor.co.uk

Volunteer opportunities in Peru with Otra Cosa

Otra Cosa Network is a registered Peruvian non-profit NGO and Registered UK Charity that offers a wide variety of affordable and satisfying volunteering opportunities to well-motivated volunteers from around the world.

We are dedicated to providing interesting, stimulating and rewarding placements to our volunteers, each of whom contribute something new to our many projects. Our ultimate objective, however, is to support our wide range of projects with suitable volunteers to help them improve the quality of people’s lives in their local area.

Visit our website www.otracosa.org to find out more or send an e-mail to volunteer@otracosa.org if you have any questions.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Educational Support / Income Generation at a local level – Andean Alliance – Peru

Andean Alliance is a Peruvian registerd Civil Assocation  (Grassroots Organization ) that works in the Northern Andes, Huaraz area in a small rural area at 3650 mtrs. We work with Early Childhood Education , literacy and comprehension skill building in addition to the development of a local community center that will house not only the edcational rooms but areas for local guides,donkey drivers etc. to sell their services directly to tourists, a small cafe concept for women to sell to tourists in addition to handicrafts. We have been in this area since 2003 with Andean Alliance  actively working since 2005. Our goals are based in education, income generation at a local level, building bridges of communication and confidence between surrounding comunities and by actually living here it allows us to be part of the comunity. The area is home to low income rural farmers ad borders on the Huascaran National Park.

Relax in the Latin Lounge

The Latin Lounge provides news, views, events, travel tips and much more. The blog is aimed at everyone with an interest in Latin America, providing a diversity of posts covering everything from Latin American music to environmental issues.