Volunteer to teach indigenous children sports in Peru

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Program Overview
Life on the Program
Project Details
Volunteer Testimonials

Program Overview

This volunteering opportunity will take you to the beautiful and fascinating city of Arequipa in the foothills of the Andes, to join this project leading sports related activity for children in disadvantaged communities.

You will be organising and running sports and physical education programs for a variety of age groups. Without your support, many of these children would not have the opportunity to take part in such a variety of sports activities and events, due to lack of resources within the community. You may also have the opportunity to assist in the local school teaching basic numeracy and literacy, allowing you to experience full cultural and community immersion.

Highlights Include: Living in the heart of the community; working with indigenous children; learning Spanish (optional); adventure side trips, cultural workshops and excursions, amazing community interaction.

This project, run in conjunction with GVI’s in-country partner, has been supporting disadvantaged communities all over Latin America since 2003.

Scholarships

We are always looking for enthusiastic and dedicated people to join our team. This project offers qualifying and high-performing volunteers the chance to stay on the project for a longer duration on a GVI Scholarship free of charge and as part of the staff team in the field. If you would like to work towards a field career and make the very most of your time abroad, you might want to work towards a place on a GVI Scholarship. Successful scholars may find themselves offered full time employment with GVI, and many of our current staff have come through this route. Contact us for more information!

Please note, the awarding of scholarships is at the sole discretion of GVI and may be offered immediately after the completion of your program or at a later date.

Life on the Program

You will spend most of your time working in the indigenous community, located outside Arequipa itself. Working around the scheduled classroom lessons, you will help provide the school’s physical education program to promote teamwork and leadership among the students. Your work can be incredibly fun and rewarding, but you should expect to be active most of the day as you lead these enthusiastic children.

Depending on circumstances at the time, you may also be expected to assist in the classroom with local teachers and other volunteers.

You will live with a local host family in Arequipa in basic but comfortable accommodation. Evenings and weekends you will be free to explore the city and the surrounding area, or to just relax with other volunteers.

Project Details

Since the inception of this particular project in 2006, Phoenix has been working with Quechua speaking indigenous communities in Peru to address some of the many issues that these people face as they struggle to integrate into life in Arequipa. Many of these problems arise as because Spanish is not their first language.

Through a range of education, sports and construction programs, Phoenix aims to suitably prepare these disadvantaged communities with the educational and life skills needed to gain employment in the city.

All Phoenix operate sustainably on a 25 year cycle. Phoenix hopes that because of the education they provide, the youngest child at the school at any time will eventually be able to afford education for their own children in the future.

How this project makes a difference:

Your presence allows for the children to receive extra attention that they would otherwise not be able to receive in understaffed schools where teacher-pupil ratios are very high.

Education is one of the best tools in fighting poverty and sports have proven a vital tool to reaching children, helping them to stay engaged in school.