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Descripción
We are a small school in a big town in rural Casanare, Colombia.
We are positively transforming the lives of over two hundred Colombians and Venezuelan migrants through quality education. Students learn at a rural campus where we have a special focus on preventing drug abuse, xenophobic and racist behaviors.
We hope you can come to help us. We need you.
Generally, we ask volunteers to stay for at least 1 month. It takes a couple of weeks just to get to know the students, so the real impact happens in the later weeks of your stay. If you speak Mandarin, we will likely make an exception for you if necessary - we don't get many mandarin speaking volunteers.
Villanueva is a town southeast of Bogotá. We are at the north border of the Amazon region (really, within the Orinoco/eastern plains region). We have a huge variety of mammals, fish, and reptiles. Volunteers also come to enjoy the amazing landscapes. Like every region in Colombia, the Easter Plains have their own authentic food, music, and dance.
"Venezuelan Refugees"
Since our town is in the middle of a migrant route, there are a lot of refugees in our town. There is no significant government or NGO presence in our town, and we try to do something for these refugees. We have provided temporary food and housing to many families, helped them find work, and run other programs. In April 2022 we set up a new location where young Venezuelan kids can attend classes from 8AM to 5PM and get free breakfast and lunch. With this program, we hope to develop relationships with their families, and eventually move them into our full-time classes if they stay in Villanueva for more than a few months. Our goal is to help them to get accepted to and graduate from university in 10-15 years, and in that way change their future.
The staff consists of 20 people in total, including the 4 founding teachers who are all members of the same family (a couple and their children, who both learned English to a C1 level here in Casanare). There is 1 secretary and there are currently 10 full-time teachers at the school, all of whom were trained here at the school.
If you're interested in learning about llanero (plains) culture while teaching a foreign language, you found the right place!
Our school is focused on providing high-quality education to students in all subjects, with a special focus on foreign language education. For over 8 years, we've been hosting foreign teachers and travelers for informal exchanges.
All of our classes have a maximum of 8 students per teacher, and we have about 250 students in total.
There is also a rural campus, 7km away from the campus in the town, where the primary school is located, which has about 60 students. If you'd like, you can teach on this campus as well, and we can organize transportation to the school for you.
Many students pay a fee to participate in this school, but students who are unable to afford the fee are not required to pay it. We run several programs as mentioned above, with about 30% of the full-time students on a full scholarship (including all the Venezuelan students), and maybe 80% part-time students on a full scholarship. We finance the scholarships by charging a higher rate to the students whose parents are more well off, whether they are doctors, lawyers, large landowners, successful farmers, or otherwise.
NOTE: Professionalism for volunteers is essential. Almost all foreigners in our town who are not from Venezuela are assumed by the public to be a teacher here, so all behavior by volunteers even outside the school will impact the students, staff, and the community. In the past, we have had issues with volunteers who don't have professional boundaries with students. Both within and outside the school, especially for male volunteers and staff, this is really important.
We also must add that smoking marijuana in Villanueva is explicitly prohibited by our policies, both inside and outside the school. This is both for your own good (avoiding the problems that come with the Colombian illegal drug trade) and for the image of the school. We have also had to face volunteers being frequently drunk in public, often in front of the families of our students (partying until the sun comes up in the neighborhood where the school is located). As a result, we almost closed the volunteer program, so these are issues that are really important to us.
We're ready to accept you into our tight-knit community with open arms!Tipos de ayuda y oportunidades de aprendizaje
Trabajo de caridad
Práctica de idiomas
Ayuda en proyectos ecológicos
Enseñanza
Intercambio cultural y oportunidades de aprendizaje
Travelers will get to know a small town in the Eastern Plains region of Colombia, one of the most biodiverse regions in the world. Flora and fauna here are similar to the Amazon region, especially near rivers and streams. There is a large river 15 minutes from the school, and once a week we go to a location in the countryside with our students to teach them in another atmosphere.
Note that on the weekends, you may be more or less on your own. Sometimes you may be invited to have lunch with students' families or we will organize trips outside of Villanueva, but it's not guaranteed to happen.
As a foreigner, you will be welcomed with open arms and lots of interest from locals. You can also get to know Llanero (plains) culture, like the typical music, dance and food of the region. This is a big town (around 40,000 people) so there's a lot to do here if you like to explore, and there are other places nearby that you can travel to cheaply by bus.Proyectos con niños
En este proyecto podría haber niños. Para obtener más información, consulta nuestras directrices y consejos aquí.
Ayuda
Mandarin Chinese teachers, English teachers, Maths, and Science teachers are all in need for this school. We need someone who will teach around 23 hours of classes per week. We're flexible with scheduling, but if you could teach in the morning that would be ideal.
To volunteer at the place, you don't need to have any teaching experience. We're most interested in the stories and the opportunities for cultural exchange you'll provide.Idiomas
Idiomas hablados
Inglés: Fluido
Español: Fluido
Portugués: Fluido
Francés: Intermedio
Chino (mandarín): PrincipianteEste anfitrión ofrece intercambio de idiomas
Este anfitrión ha indicado que está interesado en compartir su idioma o aprender otro.
Ponte en contacto con él para obtener más información.Alojamiento
There are 2 bedrooms with private bathrooms inside the school that can be shared by 2 volunteers each (although recently, each volunteer has been able to have their own bedroom). We want all volunteers to be comfortable, safe, and feel at home. There is a kitchen in the school as well (gas stove, large fridge with a freezer) and wifi internet (10mbps connection).
Lunch and breakfast is provided during the week by the school. The local grocery store has a free delivery service and there is a small store 5 blocks away that sells essentials (fruits and vegetables, milk, butter, rice, spices, etc). The cost of food is also pretty low - a burger at the restaurant across from the school is about $3 USD.Algo más...
In your time off, we can provide you with a bicycle if you request it, and there are several exercise groups nearby that you can participate in.
There are a lot of beautiful trails near rivers and wide open spaces that you can walk or bike on.
One fun thing that you can do in April/May is to hunt for ants - in this season, baby queen ants from a species here leave their nests to try to establish new colonies, with hundreds of new ants coming from each nest. People from this region of Colombia pick up these ants and then later fry or grill them to eat.
If you like meat, this area is known in the country for its cattle and beef production. We're also super vegetarian friendly, having hosted vegetarians and vegans in the past.
The below details are moved from the main description because they are less important for our project than the rest of the information:
An ecological project is led by one of the tutors and a group of students. They have planted over 1000 trees in the last two years. Every Saturday morning they go together either to clean parks and rivers or to take care of the trees already planted.
The area of the rural campus is about 3 hectares, on which we've planted over 100 different types of plants. We have planted almost 3 thousand trees in the past 3 years, both on the rural campus and in some areas of the town as well. There are also a few farm animals: currently we have two sheep, 2 dogs, one rabbit, and about 10 chickens.
2023 transportation update:
The bus from Bogotá should take 5-7 hours, but can vary greatly depending on the traffic leaving Bogotá (rush hour traffic is really bad). Make sure to ask for a big bus (bus grande) - small buses stop in a lot more small towns and are much less comfortable. The bus can also be chilly due to the AC. It's a good idea to wear a sweatshirt or jacket.Un poco más de información
Acceso a Internet
Acceso a Internet limitado
Tenemos animales
Somos fumadores
Puede alojar familias
Puede acoger a nómadas digitales
The school has two 10mbps fiber optic internet connections. Especially during school hours the internet connection is limited, but with a data plan it's usually sufficient as backup. A volunteer helping with the project worked remotely as a software developer for over 2 years, so if you need to do some work, the infrastructure here should be fine. Power outages occasionally happen (1-2 hours per week on average in 2020, and there are planned power outages for a day three or four times a year, with several days notice before the outage). Mobile data is relatively cheap (in 2020, it is about 4 dollars for 1gb of mobile data on a prepaid Claro plan - in 2022 it is a bit cheaper).
Espacio para aparcar autocaravanas
You can park on our rural campus' property, or we can find another place to park if you need to be closer to the town (for teaching the older kids).
Podría aceptar mascotas
We'll need to discuss this, but we're open to accepting people with pets.
¿Cuántos voluntarios puedes hospedar?
Más de dos
Comentarios (15)
We really had a great but as well a challenging time . It was our first time in our lifetime to be fully integrated as a teacher and cover all the responsibilities which are neccessary for the job.
It started with getting know to the… read more
Comentarios
Son opciones de calificación adicionales para cuando los miembros dejan sus comentarios. Se muestra la calificación media dejada en cada opción.
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We really had a great but as well a challenging time . It was our first time in our lifetime to be fully integrated as a teacher and cover all the responsibilities which are neccessary for the job.
It started with getting know to the… read more
She has great planning skills, she is always motivated and positive. Karena worked well with every age group, she was especially good with teenagers, and she found a special balance between challenging but… read more
Thank you for everything, and hope to see you sometime soon! The whole school will miss you both.
We are happy to have received her at our school!
Hope you're enjoying your travels!
It was a pleasure hosting you, and we hope you're doing well!
The hosts are very open minded to your teaching methods and give you all the freedom you need to structure (or not:)) your lessons. Personally, I found it particularly fulfilling to work with the… read more
We hope she returns someday, whether as a tourist or a volunteer. Thank you, Lauren!
Teaching Chinese has been fun, the kids are so eggar to learn and very well behaved. Other than that, they have helped a few Venezuelan families which fled to Colombia with their kids… read more
Thanks Alex, and best of luck to you in all your endeavors!
All the kids loved her. She helped us improve our methods of teaching in science.
Thank you so much Leti!!!
- Ana Maria
the others teachers are helpful and they will support you if you need anything. but you are basically free to teach what ever you like and the way you think is the… read more
He was always early, always prepared… read more
Thanks for everything, Simon!
There's also loads of opportunities for Spanish practice with students, their parents, neighbors, and staff. If you are traveling across Colombia (as I have been), this is a great… read more