Organisation

The receiving organization is a language school and NGO that supports a number of projects in Quetzaltenango and surroundings. If you’re doing volunteer work you can get Spanish classes at a reduced tariff. You can also participate in the excursions that the language school organizes (of course against payment at long distance trips).

Project activities

• You stay within the community (Sololá, Nahuala) in which you cooperate with the local women at the development of local trade (weaving), assist at the adult education which is given to them, and offer support  at the development of ideas for the promotion /  sales and/or export of their products. Besides it’s also possible to contribute to the local elementary school.
• It’s possible to combine the projects of this NGO (for instance, cooperating 4-5 hours a day at the Woman Artisan’s Project and working 2-4 hours a week in the women’s prison. For more information, contact the contact person of LTV Guatemala.

What’s expected of the volunteers?

• Required: Nivel intermedio de Español (when this is not the case, you have to take a Spanish course)
• Social
• Flexible
• Enterprising
• Taking initiative

Accommodation and living environment

• You live at a family and pay for board and lodge. In this way you learn to know the culture from inside out and are you in the perfect environment to learn Spanish.

Period / duration

• Throughout the entire year. Minimum stay 3 months, but preferably a long term sending. You work throughout 5 – 6 days per week (4-5 hours a day).

Local costs

• About €120 per month (including meals)

Experiences

“Also Enrique was of opinion to first start an update and inventory of the strengths and weaknesses of the production groups, in order to base a campaign on it. 

A first meeting for me with these women, each at least a head smaller than I am. I talked a long time with several cooperation members, I sat in a circle and half in the dark in one of their tiny living rooms, told them our ideas on how or what to do, and asked them to tell us their ideas. An introduction round surprised me many times: where I estimated the women to be in their forties, they turned out to be younger than me. I was undoubtedly misled by their wrinkly faces, and especially often their half toothless mouths; living at the campo clearly demands its toll of the beauty of women.”

Marisha