Name:                         
Email address:
***(please provide email only if it is ok for other volunteers to email you about project)
Partner organisation:
Start date:                    May 2010
End date:                     May 2010

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

Farming/construction jobs, yes had prior experience

• 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.

Yes, good

• 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.

Yes, Finca Sarita is definitely worth working with, and Yanapuma. Adaptability to different people, cultural norms, tropical climate, food and practical skills needed. Also, ability to speak/hear and listen to Spanish spoken a la Manabi style!

• Was the communication and support you received from Yanapuma, before and during your time volunteering adequate? Please comment on the initial orientation session, showing you to your site and communication throughout.  If not, please specify why and how it could be improved.

Initial session good in Quito, but not much interaction during work placement. Not too much info on the farm and people on the farm, but that was ok, since I,m used to farm life and am adaptable.

• How would rate your overall experience at this project?

Good, very good

• Any other comments?

I was disappointed that the Ecuadorians on the farm didn´t integrate me more into their life, especially when talking to one another. The Spanish spoken is fast, and not clear - not like in the Sierra / Quito which is clear Spanish. Insufficient number of work tasks assigned, too, by Servio. The wet season was also difficult, humid and mosquitoes and mud! Lack of fellow volunteers in this season, too.

• 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.

Muchas gracias!!!
Volunteer Ecuador Final Evaluation

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

I didn’t really have any main tasks, other than teaching English, mostly just a plethora of smaller tasks. Therefore I will provide a list of some tasks and whether I had prior experience:

• Teaching English – no prior experience (npe)
• Watering and fertilizing garden – some prior experience; we have a garden at my house
• Weeding garden – see #2
• Bamboo construction – npe
• Feeding animals – npe
• Painting signs – I had painted before
• Pruning and transplanting hibiscus stems – npe
• Chopping off dead banana leaves – npe
• Picking ají chilis – npe (I had picked raspberries before, but that’s different.)

• 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.

For the most part. As you probably know, Servio works as a department head at university in Calceta during the day. He usually leaves a list of tasks for you to complete and describes them to you in the morning. However, the first week he only provided about an hour of work and I was left with nothing to do for the rest of the day. Also, this method does not allow you to ask questions once he has left, which can sometimes be a problem. As the selection of tools is limited, I had to adapt or find the best ways to use the tools available, which was overall a good learning experience.

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

Some knowledge of Spanish would be good as none of the family speaks good English. The volunteers should be willing to do ad hoc tasks as well as farm work and to get their hands dirty. I would recommend this site to small groups or pairs of volunteers desiring a month-long or shorter homestay during which they can do some work. I would have desired more interaction as solitary work did not help me to improve my Spanish skills. I also had to prod Servio to share his knowledge of organic farming and found his communication skills much better with male rather than female volunteers.

• 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, Yanapuma, through Fran Henry, did an excellent job supporting me.  She provided all the help I could expect in my remote location and even gave advice for travelling to, from, and around Quito. I was very grateful to have worked with Yanapuma.

• How would you rate your overall experience?

I would say this was a good experience, but not a great one. 

• 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.

My goals were the following: improve Spanish speaking and oral comprehension, learn about organic farming and its significance in a developing country, learn about home life in Ecuador and develop relationships with the family or locals, learn new farming skills.
My Spanish abilities did not improve as much as I believe they could have if I had had more constant contact with Spanish speakers daily – my solitary work prevented that in the morning (8-12:30) and a good chunk of the afternoon (4-7). I would say I learned a few important vocabulary words, grew more accustomed to hearing lowland Ecuadorians speak, and grew more confident in my speaking abilities, but overall grammar and vocabulary did not improve much.
I learned a little about the principles of organic farming, but most of it was in outside of the work I did. The “organic farming” activities I did were feeding food and food scraps to animals, using organic fertilizer in the garden, adding weed plant mass to the compost pile, making bug traps out of plastic bottles and fermented banana juice, painting yellow plastic sheets with pig fat for bug traps, weeding and tilling the garden. I learned the most about organic farming from the Encuentro de Intercambio de Semillas on a weekend trip to the Oriente and two “classes” the other volunteers demanded from Servio while I was there. From these and some advertisements Servio had around the farm, I was able to determine the significance of organic farming or at least agroecology to Ecuador and Colombia.
The homestay allowed me to learn a lot about family life in Ecuador but I would have liked to have had a mother figure. While Mercedes was kind and helpful, she was somewhat distanced and more like a grandmother/nanny than a mother. Being in a rural farming village, it was difficult to meet Ecuadorians my age, and although Servio invited a girl my age from Calceta to attend my English classes, she was really my only exposure to young adults in Ecuador and unfortunately we found little in common.
The farming skills I learned were minimal and primarily exclusive to the region (for better or worse). I learned a lot about bamboo and machetes and handsaws but not much about banana or cacao or café.

Sorry that wasn’t short. Let’s just say I combined 6 and 7.

• Any additional comments?

See above

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

Name:
Email address:
Partner organisation (Volunteer Site): FINCA SARITA
Start date: 6 March 2009
End date: 25 March 2009

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

1. General care of animals - e.g. feeding farm animals in the morning at 6:30am, occasionally mucking stalls
2. General gardening/planting - e.g. weeding and mulching plant beds, planting seeds, watering plants
3. Cooking and cleaning (kitchen) - e.g. peeling, chopping, seeding, juicing fruits and vegetables, making bread, doing the dishes (a very large part of the work here, where all three meals a day come from the farm)
4. Specialty food preparation - e.g. gathering, peeling, roasting, and grinding peanuts, cacao, coffee beans
5. Artesanias - Wednesday afternoons (and sometimes other times) are devoted to artesanias (making crafts) such as mate cups, bowls, and spoons
6. Entertaining children - whether or not this is considered a “task” depends on the volunteer, but it is a large part of life at the finca and of “helping out”
7. Admin/office/English skills - one day I helped Servio set up a bilingual email auto-reply to let people know how frequently he checks his email and that they should (re)send their emails in Spanish. In the next few months, I will be making a bilingual handout for the tours he hopes to give. This isn’t really part of the “volunteer experience” but really the only example of how I am applying prior experience or knowledge to the project.

Overall, very little prior experience or knowledge is required and the family is very patient. They are eager to teach and share their lives and having children around makes the experience much more interesting/authentic/rewarding (because they will be honest with you when you do a horrible job of making juice, for example).

2. 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.

Yes. At times it felt like there was more work to be done than I was asked to do. I would describe this kind of volunteering more as being an extremely helpful houseguest.

3. 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.

I would definitely recommend a stay at Finca Sarita for anyone who has an interest in permaculture and organic agriculture. Servio, Maria, and the children are incredibly warm, welcoming, and patient. Servio has big and interesting ideas and is eager to share them.
Volunteers should be interested in permaculture and organic agriculture (duh?). In terms of skills, no prior skill is necessary (except enough Spanish to feel at home and be able to communicate). You don’t even need to be very strong physically.
I would not recommend Finca Sarita to anyone who has strong reservations about the following: insects, children, heat, humidity, and doing dishes.

4. 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.

Yes.
The powerpoint orientation session was helpful. I enjoyed having Stephen’s company on the way to the site and appreciated not having to worry as much about how to get there. It was really nice to know that people back at Yanapuma were available by phone and email.

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

“Exceeded expectations. Finca Sarita was an unexpected paradise in which I was able to learn a lot by osmosis. If I were staying for longer than 3 weeks I would request more personal responsibilities and structure.

6. Any other comments?

Notes for future volunteers:

• If they are not interested in going into town (which can take an entire afternoon) they should bring enough money to pay for their entire stay. They should also be prepared to pay at any time (given that the money often goes directly from the hands of the volunteer to other people the family hires and to the monthly computer fee).
• There is electricity in all of the cabanas, so it is perfectly reasonable to bring chargers for cell phones, cameras, etc.
• There are many interesting opportunities associated with going to Finca Sarita, and volunteers should speak up about their interests (because then Servio will know what to share). Examples include a howler monkey forest within walking distance, the upper fields of the farm (corn, cucumbers, beans, peanuts, etc, beautiful views) accessible by horseback ride, a hydroelectric dam accessible by motorbike.
• The experience of being the only volunteer is very different from having company (especially depending on whether that company is inclined to maintain a Spanish-only environment).

Muchas gracias!!!

Volunteer Ecuador Evaluation

Name: Email address:
Partner organisation:Finca Sarita
Start date:2.2.2009
End date:2.3.2009
.

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

Most of the time, we worked on the farm what means that we planted trees, collected fruits and helped to clean the garden with the vegetables.
Furthermore we made handcrafts and food like chocolate, peanut butter and so on.

• 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.

Yes, it was really adequate.

• 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.

Yes, of course I would recommend it, because I really enjoyed the time on the farm!!
The volunteers should be interested in nature (obvious) and maybe in the fairtrade as well because the owner of the farm is very engaged in this area and can explain a lot. Furthermore they should like children;-)

• Was the communication and support you received from Yanapuma, before and during your time volunteering adequate? Please comment on the initial orientation session, showing you to your site and communication throughout.  If not, please specify why and how it could be improved.

I didnt have any orientation session but I think it was not that necessary.
But the support and communication during my stay on Finca Sarita was ok!

• How would rate your overall experience at this project?

The time I stayed at Finca Sarita was a really great time for me and I never will forget this great experience...I learned so much there and I think about working in thefairtrade as well.

Volunteer Ecuador Evaluation

Name: Email address:
***(please provide email only if it is ok for other volunteers to email you about project)
Partner organisation: Finca Sarita
Start date: 02 January 2010
End date:  30 January 2010
.

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

I was at Finca Sarita during the rainy season.  Planting was the main task, but harvesting cacao, feeding animals, making artisan crafts, and helping with a community construction project were also a part of my experience.

• 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.

Yanapuma really didn't have to do much to ensure for a successful volunteer experience.  Contacting Servio to let him know we were coming seems to be all they did.

• 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.

For the excessively careful international volunteer, I would recommend working with Yanapuma. For people like myself, it would be better just to contact Servio Pachard directly.  As mentioned before, other than make that initial contact, Yanapuma didn't do much to earn their $175 reservation fee.  It took them weeks to answer simple questions I emailed.

• Was the communication and support you received from Yanapuma, before and during your time volunteering adequate? Please comment on the initial orientation session, showing you to your site and communication throughout.  If not, please specify why and how it could be improved.

As mentioned above, communication was not adequate.  I expect to receive an email acknowledging that I have asked a question, even if the answer requires further investigation.  Instead, I only heard back from Shanti after I sent a follow up email a week later, and I never heard back from Fran.  Their explanation was that so and so was on vacation...it's called email forwarding.

• How would rate your overall experience at this project?

  The project was great.  9 out of 10.  Servio is a great guy and is finca is amazing.  I met a lot of people from the community as well as other volunteers and I had fun while I was working, regardless of the task.

6.   Any other comments?
 
   
7.    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.
 
 
  Muchas gracias!!!
Name: Pieter van den Ende                                         
Email address:
***(please provide email only if it is ok for other volunteers to email you about project)
Partner organisation: Finca Sarita
Start date: 30 mayo
End date: 24 junio

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

Helping on the farm first of all, collecting mais, clean banana trees with a machete, making chocolate and coffee and harvesting fruits at the finca like oranges, limes, zapotes and many more. I also teached the kids at the basic school in the community and maked different toys at the daycare center for the kids.

2. 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.
   yes, I got all what was necessary.

3. 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 rehaznos.

Sure!!!!!! Because of the great diversity of the activities that are possible at that place! Working at the finca but also can teach and help in other projects.

4. Was the communication and support you received from Yanapuma, before and during your time volunteering adequate? Please comment on the initial orientation session, showing you to your site and communication throughout. If not, please specify why and how it could be improved.

Sure! Just the info I needed to get there, no more needed!

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

8,5 out of 10

6. Any other comments?

7. 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.

 Muchas gracias!!!