Volunteer Care projects in Peru, work with children in orphanages, day-care centres, care homes and disabled centres

Volunteer Care work with children overseas in Peru

As well as working with children there are also opportunities for more experienced volunteers to assist with the training of staff in our partner organisations. But whatever your age, abilities, qualifications or level of experience, you can contribute towards this vital development work during a gap year, career break, or just a vacation. Energy, passion and commitment to the work at hand should see you through.

Voluntary Special-Needs and Play-work with Projects Abroad

Our office is based in the town of Urubamba, which is situated in the Sacred Valley. Our Care projects in Peru are all situated in this region. There are three different placement options for volunteers: Kindergarten Programmes, Day Care Centres, or working in a school with children with learning disabilities. Our local staff will help you to find the placement that most accurately matches your skills and level of experience.

Projects Abroad runs a pilot programme in coordination with the Ministry of Education, where materials, activities and strategies are tried out before we try to implement them in other kindergartens in the Sacred Valley. We are responsible for the in-service training of the kindergarten teachers in the region, so our volunteers are also welcome to help prepare materials for the training workshops.

You will assist the class supervisor in all kinds of play-work activities, such as arts and crafts, painting, and teaching reading and writing. You may wish to develop projects with the children using your own interests in music, sports or drama, or you may wish to take a more observational role and lend the children support through providing friendship and assistance.

We encourage volunteers to try new activities and expand the range of games and ideas the children will encounter. Working closely with individual children and identifying their areas of strength is a very important part of this placement.

Volunteers work alongside local teachers developing resources and classroom activities to make the lessons more interesting. We aim for volunteers to contribute to the resources at the kindergarten during their placement, building up a bank of information that the teachers can use in their lessons.

Volunteers can also work in Day Care Centres for children between 1 and 4 years old. Here you will assist the supervisors with general hygiene and with the caring for and feeding of the children. You may wish to develop small projects with the children using your own interests in art, music, sports or drama, and we will provide you with the resources necessary to assist you in this.

A further care placement is at a special-needs school in Calca, where we have been working since 2005. People with learning disabilities are often still regarded as one homogenous group in Peru, but the provision of support for many learning disabilities has changed dramatically in recent years. In line with this we are helping to implement a system focussed on the individual, including art, drama and music therapies, and supporting life-long learning.

During the holidays - between mid-December and March - care volunteers will usually either work at summer Day Care Centres for pre-school children or on a Community Project in the mountains.

Volunteering abroad on a Care Project in Peru

We try to take advantage of all of our volunteers' talents and skills when organising their Care placement. Volunteers can assist in improving the childrens' competence and awareness in many areas of personal and social education, such as problem-solving, adjusting behaviour to different situations, and understanding others. Helping the children in these areas is vital in order to give them the best chance of living independently in the future.

Volunteering on a care project in Peru is a chance to make a real difference to these children, not merely through the development of their social and life-skills, but also through exposing them to new ideas and cultures. And it is likely that you will learn as much from them as they do from you!

All volunteers on Teaching, Care, Culture & Community, Medicine & Healthcare, Sports or Spanish placements in Peru now have the opportunity to add a 7-Day Conservation Project to the end of their main placement.
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