Name:

Email address:

Partner organisation (Volunteer Site): Amupakin, Archidona

Start date: 20/04/09

End date: 8/05/09

1. What were the main tasks you undertook at the project? Did you have any prior experience or knowledge that helped you with these?

Working in the medical gardens
Making jewellery!
Saw one patient to assess the position of the baby and provide herbal medicines for her aches and pains.

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

I expected to see midwifery care, but only saw one patient in 3 weeks!
They told me that they could arrange a stay in a rural community and then on the morning that I was supposed to leave they told me that it wasn’t possible, but they did arrange for me to aty in another family for the week.

1. Would you recommend working with this organisation to other volunteers? What are the main areas of skills and interests that volunteers need for this work? Please give reasons.

Amupakin was a wonderful cultural experience but it is not currently in a position to provide experience in indigenous midwifery due to the lack of patients.

1. Was the communication and support you received from Yanapuma, before and during your time volunteering adequate? Please comment specifically on the powerpoint orientation session, being taken and introduced to your site, and all contact throughout. If no please specify why and how it could be improved.

All was brilliant. I was impressed at the smooth organisation.
I felt very guided, it was great to be taken to the bus station and put on a bus then good to be taken to the house in Archidona.
Usually the email replies were fairly rapid.
The orientation PowerPoint was good, a good introduction to Ecuador and Quito, I think it’s important and useful to know a bit of background about an area you are going to be visiting and working in.

1. How would rate your overall experience at this project?

I had a wonderful experience, but it was not the experience that I went to the project aiming for, because of the lack of clinical contact.

1. Any other comments?

Spanish is really needed for this project but I went with very basic spoken Spanish and managed great because I was willing to study it every evening so I improved rapidly.

The homestay were lovely and it’s close to the centre so access to the internet is easy, whereas it is not so easy from the centre as it is a 30 min walk or a bus ride, but the homestay room was very basic and a bit dirty(!) whereas the rooms in the clinic were lovely and very well kept.

1. If you would like, please write a short paragraph summing up your project and experience volunteering, as well as if and why you might recommend this volunteer site to others in the future. We will put this information on our Volunteer Ecuador website, as a direct quote from you to help others learn about your experience.