Many travelers wonder how they can improve their Spanish in Latin America, learn about the Latinamerican culture and do something useful at the same time. Our organization Volunteer Work Latin America – a brand of Dos Manos Travel – has the answer: we offer volunteer placements all over South America, for instance, in this child care center in Bolivia.

The center is situated in a beautiful location at approximately 15 km. from the city of La Paz, surrounded by the Andean mountains, in a semi-rural valley. One of the founders of this project is Emma. We asked hare some questions about her project, that she affectionately calls ‘’the Nursery’’. The project has had a truly meaningful impact on the majority of the indigenous population. The impacts include pulling the people out of the social, economic and political exclusion, and very vulnerable situations. Below you will read Emma’s answers to our questions about the volunteer project and the importance of the volunteers for this project in Bolivia.

What is your role in the organization?

In the first two years I was very much involved with managing and raising the project. At the time when the project started, there were 30 children, and we started in my house. A real child care center was build and now we give home to just under 90 children, between 6 months and 4 years old. My role changed to a more fundraising role now. This is important because it ensures the sustainability of the project. The volunteers are very important as they provide vital support for the care of the children and also in the classrooms. My role also contains coordinating the work of the volunteers. The centre itself is now run by local women, many of them indigenous Aymara. They make sure the children are well received in the center to be nurtured, learn and play.

Can you tell is some more about the inspiration behind this project?

The main inspiration to start this project was the fact that in the village, more than 70% of the children were undernourished. Their parents didn’t simply have enough time, knowledge and money to give them the right and regular meals. Because there were no child care facilities in the village, when the parents needed to go to work the children were often left in the houses, or in the care of other young siblings. This is why the kids were easily exposed to malnutrition, abuse, hunger and accidents. An example of this is a little child that got badly burnt when his brother (7 years old) tried to heat water during lunchtime. This shouldn’t be like this and there was a real need for a center to take in the children to protect them from these kind of situations.

At present, how is the project running?

The centre has a wider function than just being a place where parents can drop their children off and pick them up and the end of the day. It is a place where they can learn more about early education, rights, nutrition and receive vocational training. The centre is operated by 10 ‘’tias’’, locally trained women who take care of the professional development of the centre, as well as improving the attention to the kids. They were part of the local Mothers Club, that designed and built the centre. We really hope to continue supporting these women in their work, and the developments they create for the centre. The building is located in a green parkland in the centre of the community. Thanks to their work and the work of our volunteers, the centre can be seen as a reference point for community-led child empowerment, focusing on promoting their culture and rights and encouraging the poorest families to make use of our services. The centre is a community on itself now, and can provide services to children with special needs that no one else is willing to accept.

When talking about the tasks assigned to volunteers, can you give us a few examples?

The volunteers prepare activities for the older children that involve reinforcement of the learning goals in language, social skills development and math. Furthermore, our volunteers help with the medical care and nutrition programs. They help when there are festivities and cultural activities. This happens quite often, and the end up helping the kids to sing and perform in traditional dance shows in front of their family and community. In addition to this, we recently have received a donation of baby-gym equipment which the kids really love. However this is only possible in small groups, and unfortunately this is regularly outside the scope of teachers. Other volunteers in the past have done music classes with homemade instruments, playing games and giving dance lessons. Overall they truly inspire the local educators and the children’s families with their creativity and new ideas.

(to be continued here …)

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