Peru 2011

In the summer of 2011, three students (Liam Coughlin, Jeff Ji, and Emily MacGregor) from Borderless World Volunteers McGill traveled to Arequipa, Peru to volunteer with the local Traveler Not Tourist non-profit organization.  The vision of this organization is to provide care, guidance, and opportunities to those most vulnerable in the local community. The NGO runs two projects with these objectives in mind. The Casa Hogar Luz Alba Orphanage Volunteer Project gives essential care for orphans and estranged children by providing them food, shelter, and basic hygiene, as well as emotional care by showing the often destitute kids that someone cares.  The Flora Tristan School Project offers an afterschool English program in the outskirts of the major city Arequipa. While the school’s functional intent is to run English classes, it is also a way for the volunteers to be personally involved in the lives of their students and aid them in many different aspects beyond the role of an instructor.  All three BWV students volunteered at the school.

Daily responsibilities mainly involved the preparing and teaching of English classes to the children, as well as taking care of various chores around the school.  Each volunteer took care of his or her individual class.  There was no fixed curriculum, so the volunteers needed to refer to the classroom logbook in order to prepare new material for the children to learn.  Furthermore, the volunteers set up a brand new computer room in the school. Before leaving to Peru, they were able to find two used computers (donated by the McGill Computer Science department), which they carried over with them as luggage during their flight to Peru.  The two computers were set up in one of the old classrooms, which had to be properly secured to avoid any possible theft.  This led to a new curriculum at the school called computer skills where the children get learn how to use computers, as well as continue to improve their English by playing with Spanish/English games.  The volunteers also aided in the preparation of advertisement and surveys for the preliminary scholarship program, which would aid some of the children in attending higher education when they grow up.