Volunteer

Volunteering is a very positive and enriching experience, through which you can understand the social reality of Bolivia, and appreciate the world of children who work in the street. The team at Ñanta is multicultural, with young volunteers from different countries who are characterized by their wish to grow. Initiative of whatever type is welcomed. Ñanta's economic resources are limited, so we are unable to provide accommodation, but we offer a daily lunch with the children, except on Sundays (one of the aims of the centre is to find funding for a house for our foreign volunteers). The centre helps new volunteers to find accommodation, and assists with the paperwork required to obtain a one-year courtesy visa (which costs less than 200 Bolivianos, or 30 US dollars).

Cost of living

The cost of living in sucre is very low; a room costs between 30 and 40 US$ per month. Lunch in the market area costs 3 or 4 Bs (8 Bs = 1 US$), or 120Bs (15 US$) per month. A beer costs about 5 Bs. In total, you can live well for 100-150 US$ per month.

Sucre

Sucre is a beautiful colonial town with 200,000 inhabitants, which has been declared a World Heritage site by the United Nations, and has a large student population. The climate is moderate: summer (from November to March) is the rainy season, during which the city is cool. In winter the weather is warmer, except for some nights as a result of the city's altitude (2700m).

At weekends you can take trips into Sucre's surrounding countryside, where you'll discover tremendous landscapes and unforgettable indigenous culture. Sucre people speak mostly Spanish, but in the surrounding areas it's easy to hear Quechua spoken, and in the deeper countryside this is the principal language.

Volunteer work

On arrival, you can count on the advice and support of the coordinator. There is a period (between 2 weeks and a month) to adapt to the centre and to participate in the daily life of Ñanta, during which you can visit all the areas of activity in order to gain a complete sense of our work, and to get to know the children. At the same time, it's a good idea to wander around the city and discover the places where the NATs live and work. Once you understand how the centre works and are integrated into the team, you'll be expected to help out with general duties which might include supervising the children at lunchtime, taking them to the dentist, and so on.

During your stay in Sucre you can take holidays, as long as you give coordinator reasonable notice and it woldn't prejudice the work of the centre. Volunteers promise to work for the centre, and in order to carry out the paperwork required to obtain a visa, the volunteer signs a contract which defines the type of work they will do and the length of time they expect to stay. Language is the key element of educational work, so Ñanta is more likely to accept volunteers with a good understanding of Spanish.

Trainees

In the case of trainees, meetings would be held with their training body, which would be followed up by the coordinator, or the director of the area concerned. Since its creation the centre has been used to working in various languages.

Requirements for volunteers

Each volunteer position at Ñanta has specific requirements, and above all a good level of Spanish. However, some posts (for instance, assistants in the painting, craft or sport areas) don't need to arrive with quite such good Spanish, and may imporove their language skills at the same time as they get to know the children, before being assigned a more responsible position (if they wish).

Every volunteer is given time to familiarize themself with the centre, in order to better understand the children and integrate with the team. It's possible to learn the language here, but this would require a longer stay. Each volunteer has a probationary period, of one month for assistants and two months for the director of an area.

To better understand the work that each area does, a future volunteer can be put in touch with someone who previously did the same work. Foreign volunteers generally stay for between 6 months and 1 year. Obviously the availability of positions depends on existing volunteers leaving. Each offer to volunteer at Ñanta is considered by the team at Ñanta with this in mind.