Ecuador Amazon Teaching Volunteers

While the schools in the area do get government funding for teachers’ salaries, they have no money to buy resources. The help of volunteers allows the project to double the annual budget of the schools, which can, in turn, fund the supply of essential educational and sporting equipment. The project also campaigns to supply additional equipment to the jungle schools, such as the Book Campaign, working to build up a mobile library to benefit the school children along the road.

Another issue faced by the schools is a lack of teachers. Although numbers at each school are not particularly high, it is normal for one teacher to be teaching 30 children of all different age groups and levels all at once. Volunteers allow schools to be split into classes, allowing the teacher to focus on one age group at a time, while the volunteers can take English, arts, sports or music classes, broadening the children’s education immensely. In line with this, the project works to a structured curriculum with the jungle schools to make sure that volunteer teaching has the utmost benefits for the children. To make it easier for one volunteer to pick up where another left off and build on previous work, the use of structured lesson plans is central to a volunteer’s time on the project.

Building a stable learning environment is really important for the jungle community children as it will give them so many more prospects in the future and this is what the teaching project is aiming to do.

You will primarily be working in one of eight schools along the Arajuno Road. Prime examples of the schools that you will be working at are:

Km 35 School – Located 35 km along the road, this school serves a small, roadside community and has around 30 students a year. The school has two classrooms, a nursery and a storeroom, modern toilets that are out of use and currently has no electricity supply. One teacher teaches all 30 children at once.

Lower El Triunfo School - This school has around 60 students a year from nursery age to children preparing to go to secondary school taught by two teachers. This school also has two classrooms and a working toilet block. Although no provision for sport exists here, there is a sports arena that can be used for free by the community.

These two schools are where initial volunteers are placed, although this will expand to a further six in due course.

School hours are from 7am to midday from Monday to Friday and volunteers will be asked to assist with teaching for 2½ to 3 hours a day.

In the mornings, you will take classes of children giving the teacher(s) the opportunity to concentrate on one particular level. During this time you will use your structured lesson plans to teach English - very important for improving future employment prospects - arts, music and sports. You will be allocated lessons and assignments according to your strengths, so you will be giving the children a varied learning environment and really improving their education.

In the afternoons, you will be placed into teams with the other volunteers and you will spend some time with the project co-ordinators planning your lessons for the next day according to the structured curriculum.

Ecuadorian school terms run from January to July and September until mid-December. Volunteer opportunities don’t stop with the holidays though. As the children tend to have very little to do during the holidays, the project is running a summer school that gives them the chance to have a bit of creative freedom! The summer school will focus on arts, sports and music as well as giving volunteers the opportunity to try out a few of their own ideas.

Community Projects run concurrently with the Summer School, but what kind of projects these will be depends entirely on funding and what needs doing within the communities at the time.