These descriptions should give you a better idea of what volunteers in the different projects do. Most of these placements have a minimum stay of one month, and long-term volunteers are always welcome. Please be aware, however, that our needs are constantly changing; many volunteers end up working in more than one project; and if you have a particular skill, we want to put it to use! For those reasons, we encourage you to get in touch with us directly about which projects would be the best fit for you. Email volunteer@awamaki.org with any questions.
Please note that long-term volunteers are an important part of our operations. We strongly encourage you to get in touch if you are considering an extended stay. As we are a small, flexible, growing organization, we offer ample opportunity for long-term volunteers to take on significant program development responsibility.
Click on the links below to see the placement descriptions.
- Kids' English Education
- Adult English Education
- Computer Education (no advanced skills needed!)
- Physical Education and Sports
- Preschool Education
- Afterschool Tutoring Program
- Afterschool Program: Teach What You Love!
Live and Volunteer in an Indigenous Andean Community
Health
Are you a doctor? A nurse? A student? Or simply interested in healthcare? We are looking for volunteers of all shapes and sizes. We do ask that volunteers have either tangible medical skills, an intermediate to advanced level of Spanish, or a willingness to make a long-term commitment in order to participate in the program. In the absence of formal medical qualifications, the ability to communicate with the staff, not to mention the patients, is essential in order for volunteers to actively contribute at the clinic and maximize their own experience. Thus, we do require that any undergraduate students applying to the program have at least a functional level of Spanish, or, alternatively, who are prepared to make a lengthy commitment (at least 3 months). If volunteers have basic Spanish skills but are planning on staying for more than three months, Awamaki will arrange a 40-hour intensive Spanish course to be taken by the volunteer during the first two weeks of their stay.
It is strongly recommended that all volunteers arrange to stay in Ollantaytambo for at least six weeks, in order to have enough time to learn the practices at the clinic and take on more responsibility. However, shorter stays can be arranged for most specialized physicians willing to offer clinics, depending on the specialty.
As a volunteer, you can participate in a range of activities, including patient care, public health, education and vaccination campaigns. Please visit the ‘What we do’ section in order to get a more detailed description of the clinical volunteering experience. We also have specific placements for work that is essential to our various projects.
Please note that it's possible and encouraged for volunteers to combine several of the education placements, or combine an education placement with their placement in a different area. A number of these committments are very part-time, as little as 5-10 hours per week. Just get in touch with volunteer@awamaki.org if you have questions!
Ollanta’s economy is increasingly tourism-oriented, and it is necessary for today’s kids to receive a basic foundation in English in order for them to be successful in their higher studies, and to able to obtain good jobs here in town when they grow up. Unfortunately the Municipality and the Ministry of Education do not have the resources to offer quality English instruction to local kids. We have partnered with the local organization Yachay Wasi (House of Learning, in Quechua) to provide volunteer English teachers. Volunteers will teach at the afterschool program (two levels: Grades 1-3 and 4-6) or in Yachay Wasi’s new alternative school (currently grades Pre-K through Grade 1). Awamaki will provide a full curriculum and textbook for these classes, but volunteers will be responsible for lesson planning. Ideal volunteers will stay three months or more, speak an intermediate level or higher Spanish, and are enthusiastic and love kids. However, all interested potential volunteers, regardless of Spanish level and length of stay, are encouraged to get in touch!
We are also looking for the right volunteer(s) to teach English to the older students (grades 4-6) at the local public elementary school. This is a challenging placement that is a good fit for volunteers with advanced Spanish, teaching experience and experience living in a Latin American country.
Ollantaytambo’s economy is heavily reliant on tourism. English is necessary for good jobs for adults in town, but very few adults have had educational opportunities in English. Awamaki’s free adult English classes are one of our most popular programs, and an incredibly rewarding placement. Students range in age from late teens to middle-aged, and all are eager to learn. This is a really fun class to teach, as it allows volunteers to truly connect with community members who are directly appreciative of the volunteer’s work. Classes are offered in the evenings, usually from 7-8:30 three days per week. There are several levels of classes going on at any time. Awamaki will provide a full curriculum and textbook for these classes, but volunteers will be responsible for lesson planning. Ideal volunteers will stay three months or more and speak an intermediate level or higher Spanish. However, all interested potential volunteers, regardless of Spanish level and length of stay, are encouraged to get in touch!
Computer Education (no advanced skills needed!)
We are looking for volunteers to teach basic computer classes to adults and/or children. This is a great position with no advanced computer skills needed – really, the skills taught are most frequently the very basics like how to use email, how to use Google, how to open and save a document, etc. Anyone with enough computer proficiency to find and read this volunteer advertisement could teach this class! Classes are taught in the local community center, which has a number of computers and resources. The class is quite fun – empowering people and helping discover the wonders of computers and technology can be pretty thrilling, something that people who live in a technology-saturated culture don’t always realize. Computer classes are necessary and important here. The adult population that grew up in Ollanta has limited to no computer experience, and the current generation of kids doesn’t have much more exposure. Yet computer proficiency is necessary here, both for people who run their own businesses, like a small family hotel that needs to take reservations through email or a small restaurant that needs to type its menu, or for people looking to move up in a larger business for which they work.
Volunteers for this position ideally will stay one month or more. Spanish proficiency – intermediate level or higher – is necessary.
Awamaki is looking for volunteers to coordinate and run children’s sports activities in the small Peruvian town of Ollantaytambo, where we work. Volunteers may work as a P.E. teacher in the local high school, or they may run afterschool sports workshops. Football (English)/soccer (U.S.) is especially popular. Volleyball is also popular. With the right volunteer, we would be interested in organizing a kids’ sports league. We also would be interested in organizing a women’s soccer tournament, as women have limited opportunity to get out and exercise. Spanish proficiency and a three-month minimum commitment is required.
The local public preschool is understaffed and underfunded. We are looking for enthusiastic volunteers to help out at the preschool and generally give the kids the extra supervision, attention and love that they need. The kids are ages 4 and 5, very affectionate and excited to be at school. There is also the opportunity to teach basic English, and volunteers are also invited to give special classes to the children in music, art, dance, sports, or wherever the volunteer has interest or expertise. This is an excellent volunteer position for people with limited Spanish. One month minimum stay is encouraged, but anyone interested should get in touch.
This placement is March-December only. There may be other opportunities to work with small children from December to February, please contact us if you are interested.
We are looking for enthusiastic and motivated volunteers to work with children in the Yachay Wasi afterschool program. This is a fantastic program for kids who are behind in school or who need extra help and support. The program combines a library, homework help, extracurricular enrichment, and constructive play for children of all ages. Volunteers are needed to tutor, help with homework and engage the kids in educational play, like arts and crafts projects. Yachay Wasi does a great job at providing a calm, healthy afterschool environment, which most of these kids don’t get at home. Volunteers also have the opportunity to teach English or other extracurricular workshops (in anything you want!) at the program. Volunteers must speak intermediate to advanced Spanish, and stay at least one month.
Afterschool Program: Teach What You Love!
We are looking for volunteers to contribute their skills, know-how or passions to an after-school program for underserved children. Be it yoga, soccer, dance, theater, music, crafts projects, photography, computers, making play-dough or games-in-English we are eager to have your help bringing variety, stimulation and enrichment education into these kids' lives. This placement can last several days, a week or longer. Spanish ability is recommended but not required, as we can pair you with a Spanish-speaker to teach the class.
We are currently accepting volunteers experienced in photography. Photography is primarily an independent volunteer project. Volunteers are welcome to document life in Ollantaytambo, life in the indigenous communities above Ollantaytambo, the textile tradition of these communities, festivals, little-known inca sites and ruins, and other beautiful and stunning aspects of Andean life. We work with photography volunteers to help them get landed in Ollantaytambo, and introduce them to people and places to inspire their photography. We understand that most photography volunteers are interested in building their photography portfolio, and we are happy to facilitate their photography experience in Ollantaytambo and surrounding communities. In exchange, we expect a selection of their best photos at the end of their stay for use in our website and informational and promotional materials. We also expect their help with our photography needs that come up. Please be aware however that this is primarily a self-directed project; you will most likely not be given an assignment.
As this is not a full time placement, we are happy to arrange a part-time volunteer project for photography volunteers in any of our other volunteer placement sites - schools, health clinics, a fair trade weaving project, or a rural indigenous Andean community. Volunteers are also encouraged to teach photography classes to kids at the local community center.
No Spanish necessary for this project. Minimum stay one month.
Awamaki seeks volunteers who are flexible, self-motivated and who show a strong degree of initiative. We expect a serious commitment from our weaving project volunteers and a minimum of 25-30 hours a week. Without our volunteers, we would not be able to keep regular store hours and the project would suffer directly as a result. In the coming months, we will need assistance from volunteers in:
- day to day running of our fair trade store, including inventory management, shop layout and buying trips
- website maintenance
- researching alternative avenues of sales, marketing and developing our consumer network -promoting and helping to run our sustainable tourism program
- assisting with sewing and dye workshop
- graphic design
- grant writing
Volunteers will accompany us on our weekly visits to Patacancha and are actively encouraged to spend a minimum of 2 to 3 days with one of our weavers and her family at the beginning of their volunteer placement. We highly recommend taking at least one or two weaving lessons in order that volunteers become familiar with the backstrap weaving tradition and we are more than happy to organise it on their behalf. We also recommend Spanish classes, available in Ollantaytambo, for those not already proficient.
Minimum committment one month.
Long-term Weaving Project Volunteers
Long-term project volunteers take on significant responsibility and can gain valuable program management experience in an international non-profit setting. We are a small organization with a small staff, and we offer our volunteers ample opportunity to be closely involved in project development and other meaningful work; we encourage them to pursue their own interests and ideas within the project. This opportunity is ideal for people interested in international community work, sustainable business practices or project sustainability, responsible/cultural tourism, or development work. Any volunteer must be highly energetic, self-motivated, and effective in independent work.
Live and Volunteer in an Indigenous Andean Community
Patacancha is a small, rural indigenous Quechua community in the mountains above Ollantaytambo, Cusco, Peru. We are seeking dedicated volunteers to live and work there. There are a number of projects in which to participate. Volunteers in Patacancha are encouraged to work in the small health post there or to teach computers, English and/or P.E. at the elementary school. Volunteers can also teach Spanish, Spanish literacy or English to the women weavers of the Awamaki Weaving Project cooperative. Photography and other positions are available with the weaving project.
Volunteers who wish to work in the weaving project have several different options for projects in Patacancha. Volunteers are needed to make a formal or informal ethnographic or gender roles study of the community, take a census of our weavers, write weaver profiles, and/or study the impact of our weaving project in the community. Volunteers are also welcome to decline a formal project and simply concentrate on immersing themselves in Quechua life, engaging themselves in the home economic activities of their family members – spinning, weaving, washing, cooking, tending animals, and agricultural work.
Spanish is helpful but by no means necessary. Quechua is the primary language spoken, and most women and older people are monolingual Quechua speakers. Men and children speak some Spanish. Basic Spanish necessary for work at the school, and a longer stay is necessary for the ethnographic study. Volunteers are welcome to come with a friend or significant other.
Good writer and outdoors-person needed to complete our sustainable-tourism Ollantaytambo Trails Guide. The Ollantaytambo Trails Guide will be a guide of all day hikes and 1-2 night overnights in the vicinity of Ollantaytambo, Cusco, Peru. The Trails Guide is part of our sustainable tourism initiative to promote sustainable, longer-term and eco-tourism in Ollantaytambo, Cusco, Peru. Ollantaytambo is set among impressive mountains that are dotted with Inca ruins, glacial lakes, endangered forests, tiny communities and other wonders. Our goal is to make tourists more aware of the many hiking opportunities in the area in the hopes of encouraging longer-term tourism and encouraging preservation of trails by the local community.
We need a volunteer to take up the comprehensive work done by previous volunteers in creating descriptions for hikes in the area. The volunteer will do each hike using the existing guide, and revise the hikes as necessary. The volunteer may also need to explore and write up two new trails. The majority of the work is on the trail. There are a number of very roughly-drafted overnight and long day hikes. The volunteer will review and revise these trail decriptions, and is also encouraged to explore and draft descriptions of new hikes.
The Trails Volunteer will work closely with Awamaki U.S. staff to accomplish the project. Awamaki U.S. is committed to providing the Trails Volunteer with the logistical support he or she needs for the project.
Some overnight hiking will be necessary. The volunteer must bring all his or her own gear.
REQUIREMENTS
-Ability to follow through and accomplish task at hand, including creative problem-solving
-Trails and backpacking experience
-Good physical condition
-Good writer
-Ability to read a topographical map and compass
-Experienced traveler, especially in developing countries or Latin America.
Please be aware that Ollantaytambo is located at 9,000 ft (2800 m) of altitude and many of the hikes take you much higher. Please let us know if you have a history of altitude sickness problems.