About the Program

We work every afternoon from Monday to Friday in two community centers 15min by car from the center of Cochabamba provided by the local communities. In each location, we have access to two classrooms, an outdoor parc and a sports field. We always have one educator who is supervising all activities accompanied by 3 to 7 local and international volunteers to carry out the activities. We have up to 40 children and adolescents in each site, aged between 2 and 17 years old. We divide the children into two groups: the small children (pre-school), from 2 to 7 years old and the older ones.

Each day we offer a program of activities that are both educational and fun for the different age groups. The activities go from teaching English, helping with homework, doing sports, creative projects around art (theatre, music, painting, drawing, etc.), community projects, health and nutrition.

Being present every day in these two communities prevent the children from being left alone in the streets and at risk of being victims from different kinds of violence. Indeed, their parents have to work long hours and are often not able to take care of their children, nor to support them in their formal education.

As some of the children are living in "favelas" types of home with no access to electricity and water, we provide each child each day with a healthy snack and drinking water. We also put the emphasis on hygiene as they have to wash their hands and brush their teeth with us.

Your Role as a Volunteer

As we have to manage a big group of children and only have one educator per location, we need volunteers to be able to run our activities. Furthermore, volunteers bring new and innovative ideas for activities and are therefore an added-value for the children. We expect volunteers to help the educator on-site every day with the activities for the children, to follow Bolivia Digna's rules, to represent the association towards the children and their families. We also expect the volunteers to come up with ideas for activities, discuss them with the educators and prepare them.

Volunteers will always be supported by the Volunteer Coordinator for any issues or concerns or to prepare its activities for the children. He/she will be supervised by an educator and/or the Volunteer Coordinator and will never be alone with a classroom.

We generally work 5 days a week (from Monday to Friday) and mainly in the afternoons so weekends are free to explore the city or travel farther afield to experience all that Bolivia has to offer.

Our activities in the centers: 

• Pre-school activities: We take care of children aged 2-6 years, where we organize recreational activities and arrange education for them (e.g. learning the numbers, reading aloud, playing in the park, etc.).
• English school: We organize English lessons twice a week, with games to improve the English skills of the children, to give them confidence, and courage to speak another language.
• Homework aid: Every day, the children come to the centers with their homework. We support and motivate the children to do their homework.
• Sports: Many children and young adults are interested in sports. Our goal is to support and improve their self-confidence, for which we use sport as a tool to pass on important values.
• Creative projects: are the activities, where we give the children the opportunity to develop skills and showcase talents, in addition to vocational education. Here, we arrange activities such as music, theater, dancing, painting, puppets, performing arts, etc., which attract, entertain and inspire the children.
• Health and nutrition: Many children live in communities without clean water. Their diet is often very unhealthy and the standard of hygiene is non-existent. We therefore try to improve the children’s current situation, and at the same time inform them about preventive measures.
• Community projects: In general, anything that benefits the community, benefits the children. That is why we undertake, facilitate and help projects that improve life conditions or the state of society, for example: community garden, forestry, cleaning, construction and improvement of infrastructure etc.
• Solidarity kitchen: with the aim of improving nutrition and ensuring healthy food for the children and seniors, we distribute free lunch from Monday to Friday.
• The Wonderful Women Program: with the aim of improving the living conditions of families, we are developing a training program in engineering in various subjects aimed at young females and mothers. We also support the creation of sustainable micro-enterprises.
• A Ray of Light Program: Here, we are convinced that technical education at high school or university level is an opportunity to improve the lives of young people and their families. Therefore we pay for technical- and university studies for young people, who contains the motivation and responsibility to fight for a better future.
• The Fortress of Love Project: in Quechua Munakuypa Kallpan - is a shelter for mothers and children, who are the victims of violence, and who need decent housing that protects them from situations of violence, and violation of their rights.

Bolivia Digna is a small charity and there is a number of different internal projects which volunteers can help with, such as:

• Finance/administrative management
• Fundraising activities for a specific project or for materials
• Help with social media, promotion and web activities
• Help apply for public or private funding, respond to calls for proposals of funding
• Communication with and recruitment of volunteers
• Coordination and follow-up of volunteers
• Volunteer training

Our Support

We support the volunteers before, during and after their volunteering: