Luz Del Mundo

About LDM
Luz del Mundo, is a home/child minding centre in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Local children attend and are offered English classes as well as other extra curricular activities such as theatre and cultural studies. There is no cultural centre in Santa Cruz and the aim of these classes is to provide the children with a rich knowledge of their culture and enable them to demonstrate what they learn to others through performance.

The centre provides them with lunch and all of their learning materials, birthday and Christmas parties/presents, haircuts as well as encouragement and loving support that in a lot of cases they don't receive in their homes.

The information provided in this blog post is provided mostly through the Charities site: http://www.volunteersouthamerica.net/LuzDelMundo/ldm_index.htm

Volunteering
LDM need volunteers to help with teaching English, arts, culture, dance or theatre. They also welcome volunteers with other skills that could help our organisation.

It’s not essential that volunteers are qualified teachers, we would prefer native English speakers for teaching English, however a high level of English as a second language would be OK. The level of the kids is very basic and one of the most important things that they learn is pronunciation since in many cases these classes are the only chance they get at hearing English when they don’t have television or stereos in their homes.

The hours are flexible, however during the weekdays the mornings are best since the children go to school around midday, on the weekends any hours are suitable. Generally the work is about 2 hours per day teaching. After two hours the kids start to lose concentration.

Volunteers should be aware that they may be the only foreign volunteer on-site. Volunteers need to be independent and capable of organising their own work, unsupervised.

Note to volunteer applicants: *** updated 10 June 2007 *** LDM is 'fully booked' for June, July & August 2007 and can no longer accept volunteer applications for those periods.

Level of Spanish Required and Minimum Volunteer Periods
Best for volunteers to have basic Spanish speaking skills (or be learning at the same time as volunteering) and the minimum volunteer period is 2 weeks.

Costs or Inclusions
Volunteer assistance is very much appreciated and there are no fees or participation costs to volunteer. Volunteers will need to organise and pay for their own accommodation and support themselves financially while working with us.

Apply
Applications are generally organised through the LDM website but I often field questions and am in regular contact with the director of the charity and happy to answer any enquiries info@jodanga.com.

How I got in contact with this charity
Luz del Mundo, a drop in/daycare centre for young children, was the first charity supported by Jodanga Backpackers Hostel. When Andres Linale opened the hostel in May 2006, he wanted to contribute to his community as well as operate the business. He met Gabrielle, the director of the charity through his sister who works in the area. Andres was lucky to have Mary Sear staying in the hostel and interested in helping the charity. Mary was the first volunteer for this organization and laid the foundations for the program that now exists through the fabulous site volunteersouthamerica.net

Since inception, the program has reached its maximum of 3 volunteers per month on a regular basis. The hostel continues to assist not only by hosting many of the volunteers, but has provided school room essentials such as the foundations white board, Christmas presents for all 72 kids in 2005 and hosts fundraising activities – including a “spare change” box in reception and the resale of cheap second hand clothes with all money going to the LDM.