Winter holiday in Bolivia is just one month away and as always children are already planning how to spend that time away from school.

One of the most requested options among the little ones is sports, so sports centres are full of children eager to play soccer, basketball and volleyball, and the same happens in swimming pools.

So if you are looking for a good option that combines volunteering and sports, this is your chance!

Being a care volunteer is so much more complicated that you might have ever imagined.

You become the mother, father, brother, sister and friend of other person during the time that you are part of her/his life.

You might find yourself cooking for toddlers, teaching algebra to teens, preparing snacks for a whole bunch of kids begging your attention at the same time just for start...

The rewards: a smile, a hug, the feeling that you made the day of somebody else.

so...If you ask me, I think that care volunteers rock!

Enjoy the pics!

Good byes are always a bitter sweet moment.

At the beginning, volunteers find difficult to get used to a new life routine, but then the days go by, and they realize that those children and people have become a little family for them during the months that they have spent with us in Bolivia.

So this time we want to share with you some pics to remember all the people that we had to say good bye latetly. We hope that some day they can come to visit their family in Bolivia.

As most of our volunteers in destination are participating today on the Children's Day celebrations in Bolivia, we want to share with you some pics of this happy occasion!

¡Feliz día del Niño!

Last Wednesday, all of us went to the photographic exhibition of Davied Meerstra, a volunteer from Netherlands that is participating in a new journalism project with a collective of Bolivian photographers.

Volunteers and staff were amazed by the images that Davied was able to capture with his lens during his trip to India. The faces, the expressions, the colors were fantastic.

We cannot wait to see the pics that he takes during his stay with us in Bolivia.

Bravo Davied!

A few days ago we said goodbye to a group of 23 college students that came all the way down from Canada in order to participate on a special Building and Construction Program.

These girls and boys from the Queen’s School of Business worked really hard to build up a new water tank from scratch for CATD’s children, a local orphanage for special needs in town.

The idea was to create an ecological store system that allows the orphanage recycle the water used in bathrooms and laundry to save around 5000 liters per day.

Putting this into practice wasn’t easy at all, but these guys were so motivated that they even managed to do some repair and paint work around, and share some time with the orphanage's children too.

We want to thank on behalf of CATD's little ones to these group since the work they did for two weeks was a true example of cooperation and good will.

It was a terrific job guys!

pictures taken by Wyatt Rybchinsky and Emily McMahon

Perhaps one of the outcomes that is not widely commented about volunteering is the cultural exchange produced between our volunteers and the children of our placements.

We have toddlers that can sign not only in Spanish, but also in French and Dutch, and young girls that learn how to cook foreign dishes, and the same happens to our volunteers. They return to their countries with lots of expressions and habits that can only be catalogued as "cochabambinos".

Enjoy some pics of this cultural exchange when our Japanese volunteer, Taisuke Azuma taught how to cook a traditional dish from his country to the girls of Sayari Warmi.

This was a great month for Ciudadela Orphanage’s children because they received donations from different parts of the world thanks to three volunteers, from Netherlands and Australia, that generously fundraised among their friends and family before their arrival.

Thanks a lot Thijs van Dorssen, Arley Plush, and Laura Jansen (including all the other volunteer who helped to execute those initiatives) on behalf of those children!

The Carnival in Bolivia continues  better than ever! Now is the women's turn, and we organize a Comadres party for all our female volunteers. Enjoy the pics!

Donation

Projects Abroad made a donation to Villa Esperanza, an orphanage in Bolivia where Care volunteers work.

Top Photo

A herd of elephants seen by Conservation volunteers in Botswana.

Top Bloggers

Teaching volunteer, Matthijs, speaks about his experiences so far in Cambodia.

Peru Conservation volunteer explains how they feed the resident jaguar at the Project.

Dirty Days

Volunteers in Costa Rica brightened the walls at Cinai San Roque by painting murals.

Forty volunteers in Tanzania helped beautify Kilimani Primary School in Arusha for their January Dirty Day.

Placement News

What do volunteers do at the Broken Wings Project in Jamaica?

A new Sports Project has started in Mexico where volunteers have the opportunity to collaborate with the teachers at a secondary school.

Volunteers have started working at the Water and Sanitation Project in Tanzania in the village of Endulen.

Festivals/Holidays

Moroccans recently celebrated Aid El Mawlid; what is this holiday in celebration of?