Costa Rica: Volunteer School Sports Work Experience Placements

Sports volunteers in Costa Rica are based in schools in and around Liberia, the capital of Guanacaste province. Teaching Sports is a great way to really get involved in the local community and to inspire the next generation of young Costa Ricans to lead a healthy and active lifestyle.

Many of the schools we work with are under-funded and are unable to employ a full-time, or even a part-time physical education teacher, so your help here is really needed. In these schools you will be the main teacher during the sports lessons, sometimes in the presence of a member of school staff. You will either teach independently, or teamed with another volunteer. In the other schools, our volunteers work as assistants to the local sports teacher.

You’ll have plenty of support from the Projects Abroad Sports Coordinator, who will be happy to give you advice and arranges regular workshops for sports volunteers, where you can share your ideas and plan new activities.

Teach Sports to Children with Projects Abroad

Sports volunteers are involved in organising a wide range of recreational activities for the children. There is a strong focus on general active games and activities that promote fitness, health and well-being, such as dodge ball, hide and seek, and dancing. Many schools also teach different sports such as volleyball, athletics and of course football. Any ideas for games or sports you know particularly well can often be incorporated. Some schools have only limited space and facilities and coaching materials can be scare, so it is up to you to use your imagination and creativity to adapt the sports and games accordingly.

The aim is for children to get fit and have fun, and to encourage them to develop a lasting habit for staying active and playing sports throughout their lives.

The majority of our Sports placements are in primary schools, with children aged between about 5 and 13 years old. We also have a couple of placements in high schools, working with students from about 11 to 18 years. If you are at a school with a local sports teacher, you will find them keen to have the help of volunteers with new ideas who can help coach the children. The teachers love learning about any new techniques you can bring from your home country, as well as having an extra pair of hands to help out! If you are at a school without its own sports teacher you will certainly be kept busy and the children will benefit greatly from your help.

Please let us know if you have any experience and would be happy taking on more responsibility in a school that lacks physical education staff, so we can match you to the most suitable placement.

Other Opportunities for Sports Projects in Costa Rica

We can also arrange Sports placements at the local university, coaching sports to students from the ages of 18 up to about 25 or older. Volunteers work as an assistant to the head coach, helping out with sports such as swimming, football and volleyball among others. Volunteers also help teach swimming to young children once a week, and accompany the sports teacher to teach at a local high school a couple of times a week.

Our volunteers are sometimes asked to cooperate with the Ministry of Education on special sporting events - for example recent volunteers were judges at the Liberia Stadium in a regional competition of provincial games. The volunteers helped arrange the logistics and Projects Abroad sponsored the event.

You may also be asked to help with sports activities after school has finished in the afternoons and evenings and there may sometimes be matches scheduled at the weekends too. The schools also appreciate any help with English lessons, so if you are happy to help in this area too, please let us know.

The schools in Costa Rica have their main holidays from mid-December to mid-February, with a shorter holiday in July. Volunteers are able to travel or enjoy the festivities with their host family over the Christmas period, then from the first week of January we organise a variety of holiday community programmes. These may include sports coaching, teaching at the Projects Abroad run language school, painting a care centre and working with children at the care centres which are still open during the holiday period.

If you have any special requests regarding your Sports Placement please let us know when you apply.

All volunteers on Teaching, Care, Sports, Journalism, Medicine, Physiotherapy or Spanish placements in Costa Rica have the opportunity to add a 7-Day Conservation Project to the end of their main placement. For more information visit our 7-Day Costa Rica Conservation Project page.