Volunteer Your Way Through Central America
Volunteering Options In Central America
| advert | Stay Free as a House Sitter. The Win Win for Pet Lovers That Travel
Though Central America is regarded as a cheap area to travel around some countries are more expensive than others and volunteering can be a good way to save funds and stick around for longer. Other benefits of becoming a volunteer English teacher, helping street children or conservation work include improving your Spanish and seeing sides of Central America that perhaps would otherwise be missed.
Along with its beaches and biodiversity, Central America is particularly rich in grassroots volunteer organisations looking for volunteers to lend a helping hand. Skilled hands are particularly welcome but often the only requirement is enthusiasm and a willingness to get those helping hands dirty.
Belize
Belize Audubon Society
BAS is the oldest NGO in Belize and cares for protected areas including a jaguar preserve, Mayan human sacrificial remains, coral reefs and the famous dive spot, the Blue Hole. Volunteers should preferably have experience and qualifications matching their requirements. This can include tourism or small business development and, for marine park volunteers, dive and marine research experience. Volunteers should be self funding, covering their personal expenses and accommodation.
Guatemala
Quetzaltrekkers
Hike Volcanoes, Help Kids is the tagline of this non profit, volunteer run trekking and outdoors association based in Quetzaltenango – though you’ll come to know the place as Xela if you come here. With the money they make from leading tourists on adventurous hikes, Quetzaltrekkers funds EDELAC, a local organisation caring for street children. If you love the outdoors, are in good physical condition, have first aid certification and intermediate Spanish, they will take you on as a volunteer guide. Guides must commit to three months and successfully complete a two week orientation period. Volunteers can also help out EDELAC directly.
Honduras
Conservation Project Utila Iguana
Utila, one of the Bay Islands that is a continuation of the Belize Barrier Reef, is regarded as one of the cheapest places in the world to get a diving qualification. The island is also the habitat of an endangered Iguana that could use a helping hand to survive. Volunteers pay €80 per week for a shared room at the station, plus their own living expenses and meals.
El Salvador
Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad
A politically orientated language school in San Salvador, CIS teaches Spanish to tourists and offers inexpensive English classes to local activists. During elections, CIS seeks volunteer election observers but generally is looking for English teachers. Volunteers must pay their personal expenses, plus a one off $100 fee to CIS to cover their orientation costs. Room and board with a local family are $80 per week.
Nicaragua
MEMANTA
MEMANTA make no bones that this is voluntourism, but it’s good value for a conservation project. They run a sea turtle hatchery from July until January. Working on Nicaragua’s Pacific Coast, they protect over 100 nests and engage in ecosystem restoration and sustainable resource use. Expect to pay $35 a day or go as a project assistant and pay $30 a day.
Costa Rica
Macaw Recovery Network
Macaw Recovery Network dedicates itself to the protect and recovery of endangered parrot populations in the Americas. There’s various volunteer work or internships to apply for here. Accommodation costs for some participants are free from the start, while other volunteers will pay up to $300 per month initially, falling to free if staying long term.
Panama
Line Handler on a Yacht Sailing Through the Panama Canal
It costs a fair bit for a yacht owner to sail through the Panama Canal. One added cost is the requirement for four line handlers onboard. Experienced Panamanians can be had for up to $100 but a skipper can make a saving by taking on volunteer hands for the transit. Writing on his website Volunteer Latin America, Stephen Knight advises where to go to pick up a ride on both the Caribbean and Pacific sides of the canal.
Images courtesy Ozzy Delaney, Peter Glenday, Adam Baker
Get Our Newsletter. It's Where The Jobs Abroad Are