Enriching our life experience through Volunteering in Peru

Pablo Neruda stated that “volunteering has the property of bringing people together in fraternal and cooperative work “. This fraternal and cooperative work, the Chilean poet refers to, we saw through a group of 9 young students (3 boys and 6 girls) that arrived in Cusco on January 3 and supported several volunteer projects of AMAUTA Spanish School in the city of Cusco.

The first organization that got support from these young people was a clinic that provides medical and rehabilitation services, which is under the direction of a religious order. In this clinic the volunteers helped with different activities such as feeding children, assist them in personal hygiene, to help them with their activities of painting and drawing, take a walk, and finally engage in recreational leisure activities.

The second entity where the group went for volunteer work aims to improve the development of a rural community and particularly their childhood (approximately 50 children between 3 and 14 years). The project is located in the near surroundings of Cusco.

The three specific points of interest of this organization are health, education and community development. Here our young cooperators made a self-presentation and spoke about social life in their country, organized games and participated in daily project activities such as cooking, science day, crafts, etc.

The third institution is a house which hosts children and adolescents who are at risk of neglect. This organization is under the responsibility of a congregation of nuns, who with a selfless dedication watch over the needs of these children. The AMAUTA volunteers made some improvements in the infrastructure of the house of the organization, for example they painted the study hall where kids do their homework, study and develop various activities as well as cleaning the courtyard wall and fixed small, broken things.

The support that these volunteers provided to these three Peruvian organizations, offering time and effort while at the same time enriching their personal life experiences though volunteering in Peru and learning to speak the Spanish language, came to an end on 10 January when, with sadness, we had to say goodbye to this wonderful group of volunteers.

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