Volunteer Review of Maquipucuna

• What were the main tasks you undertook with the organisation? Did you have any prior experience or knowledge that helped you with these?

The main things that we did at Maquipucuna where teaching English the children in the local village primary school, painting the school playground and helping out around the lodge. To help out at the lodge we made some signs out of wood to go on the trails around the reserve, reviewed a hand book to go in the rooms for guests and created a bird list. We also did a very small amount of teaching for the staff at the lodge. I had no real prior experience or knowledge that helped me with these tasks.

• Was the information and support you received from the organisation adequate to ensure you could carry out your work successfully? If not, please explain why.

Yes, the information that I received was very good. Although to begin with we did not know how many children there would be or what sort of age they would be. This may have been helpful for us to sort out our first lesson plan.

• What skills or interests would other volunteers need for this work? Would you recommend working with this organisation to other volunteers? Please explain.

You definitely need to like working with children. Being interested in teaching would also be helpful because it is quite different to just playing with children. You need to be able to have the confidence to be able to discipline them as well as making the lessons fun and be patient with the younger children. It would also help if you were interested in nature because the lodge is in a reserve where all the guests who come are particularly interested in nature. The tasks we did around the lodge were nature related. Being able to speak Spanish is most definitely something that is very useful. I cannot really speak Spanish but my friend who I was with could. I did once go to the school on my own but the lessons were more boring for me and the children so you will have a better experience if you can communicate easily. Also the staff at the lodge cannot speak fluent English, so although other volunteers may be fluent in English and Spanish it is still easier if you can communicate directly. I would recommend working with this organisation to others because I had a really great time.

• Was the information, communication and support you received from Yanapuma, both before and during your volunteer placement, adequate? If not, please explain why and offer suggestions on how it could be improved.

Yes, it was all very good. We were checked up on regularly by email and the information we were given before was very helpful.

• How would you rate your overall experience?

I would rate my overall experience as Excellent!

• If you would like, please write a short paragraph summing up your volunteer placement to help Yanapuma, our partner organisations and future volunteers learn from your experience.

During the month my friend and I taught children English two mornings a week (age 5-12 in three different classes). One morning a week we painted the school playground and the rest of the time we were helping out at the lodge. We made wooden signs to go round the trails, an information booklet to go in the rooms of the guests and a bird list. At the weekends we were free to go away. We could leave on the Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. We spent one weekend at the lodge, one weekend in Otavalo and the last weekend in Mindo. We both really enjoyed our time there. The staff at the lodge were all very kind and helpful. The accommodation was great, we were given beds and bedding and the showers were hot. We did have to walk to the school in the village and this took about an hour but it was a nice walk with lovely views. It was a great place to be staying and I think that even in the short time we were there we managed to help out a bit.

• Any additional comments?

No

• Do you authorise Yanapuma to share the information contained in this evaluation with other volunteers and partner organisations?                   YES ü              NO _____