Organisation

The Mexican NGO was founded in 1992. Main goal is to counteract the negative factors with which the street children and their families have to cope. The mission of the NGO is the guidance and the improvement of the development of children and youngsters and their families who are living on the street or pertain to the risk group, by means of educational methodology in order to improve their personal, familial, and social conditions.

Project activities

You work in one of the three programs of the NGO (one for street children, one for children working at the market, and one for children coming out of violent families). Each program knows three phases: the friendship phase, the intensive phase, and the follow-up phase. A volunteer can choose whether he would like to work in a friendship phase or an intensive phase. It’s not necessary to choose beforehand within the NGO what program and what phase is most appealing to you. This can be done locally, for instance by visiting the three programs.

What’s expected of the volunteers?

• Nivel intermedio in Spanish
• Age: minimum 18 years
• Affinity with children
• Some paediatric, sociological, psychological skills or some knowledge of social work
• Social attitude
• Excellent communicative skills
• Enthusiastic, enterprising, patient and responsible
• Being capable of adapting to the circumstances of the project but also to the culture (accommodation, food, locals, other volunteers)
• Being prepared to work in a team and of course also with “risk” children
• The desire to give a lot of yourself to others
• Being prepared to do half of the time administrative work for the NGO (writing of financial approvals, writing and responding to e-mails of potential volunteers, translation of documents, etc.)

Accommodation and living environment

• Most of the time the NGO has in one of its programs (where the children out of the social problematic families live) a number of rooms free where volunteers can eat and sleep at a small fee. Living at a family in Oaxaca is very expensive. Hiring your own apartment on the other hand is relatively cheap (around €150 – 300). Transport to and from the project is for your own account. Public transport in Mexico is good and cheap. Oaxaca is a tourist town where there is a lot to do.

Period / duration

• Throughout the year, with a minimum of 6 months.

Local costs

• Cf. Accommodation

Experiences

 “I experienced my stay in Mexico as very instructive, fun, and at some points also difficult. I arrived in a strange country, my Spanish was somewhat rusty and I had little experience in working with children. After a few weeks I felt at ease and worked in all programs of the organization.”

Onno.