|
|
Follow me through the ups and downs of starting a non-profit volunteer organisation, the journey starts in Ecuador with an idea, and the end is no where in sight.
The blog records, how the project started, the people I have met along the way and the pr 
Mar 14, 2007 09:00 PM Arajuno Road Project: The Beginning
I really just fell into volunteering, it was never something that had really appealed to me, but as I was planning my gap year it seemed to be a good idea to spend some time in one place. I think "giving something back" is the phrase that most people use. As with most gappers, I went with one of the large for-profit companies, which offered the security that I (and more importantly my parents) wanted. I had a great time but my impact of the children I taught and the community that I was living with was negligible.
I fell into the category that most people who worked with the for-profit companies did, saying how I could do better and what a rip off the whole thing was. I continued to travel during my uni years, and volunteered with another for-profit which was yet more meaningless than the first, so I looked for a non-profit project and went to volunteer for them. (See http://www.santamartharescue.org/amazonia.html)
Now this was what I was talking about, all the money stayed in country and real benefits could be seen being created on a weekly basis. I could sit back and physically see the impact that I had made and be safe in the knowledge that this would last long after I had gone. That was what inspired me, I had the time and ability to start a project like this, there were no ties keeping me anywhere, so I took the plunge.
That was probably the hardest decision, deciding to dedicate the next few years to something that might not work, and would consume all the time and energy that I would have for the foreseeable future. The rest (at least in the 'this is what I have to do next' section) was easy.
Working with local schools and communities was my focus, and finding schools and communities than needed help in the Amazon of Ecuador was easy. The schools in the jungle receive no funding aside from the teachers wage and utilities, and one teacher will teach 6 grades of children at the same time. The [url=http://www.youvolunteer.org/schools.htm]Arajuno Road[/url] was the obvious location as there were 7 schools within easy reach of each other which all had the same staff and funding problems.
The next problem was where to house the volunteers. The local homes did not have spare sleeping areas, running water, bathrooms or adequate cooking facilities, so the necessary investment in each home to make it acceptable to a volunteer was not viable. The nearest hostels and guesthouses were too far away and too expensive, so the solution was to build a volunteer house. This was going to require funding, which I would need to get from England, but in the meantime I need to have a location to return to once the funding was in place. I found a good piece of land halfway along the 50km road between Arajuno and Puyo, and bought it before I headed back to England.
The next step was now to create the organisation itself...
ref. http://www.youvolunteer.org: Arajuno Road Project
|
|
|
|
