Current
Volunteer Opportunities
with CRACYP
Please read the whole of
this page before applying for a volunteer position and note that BASIC
SPANISH
IS NEEDED FOR ALL OF THE VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES IN ECUADOR.
We do not offer paid jobs, only unpaid volunteer positions.
We are seeking
technically-minded, IT-savvy virtual
volunteers, based anywhere in the world, to help with website accessibility
and / or search engine
optimisation and link-building.
You'll volunteer from your home or office at a time that
suits
you and will need your own computer and internet connection.
Website accessibility
volunteer: Do
you have the knowledge to help make our websites more accessible to
those using screen-reading devices or with other special needs?
Ideally we would like a volunteer to evaluate our current
accessibility and then improve it. If you can improve it for
us,
that would be fantastic. If you only have time to send us a
list
of easy-to-follow instructions that another volunteer could carry out,
that too would be helpful. (Spanish language skills not
necessary
for this role).
SEO and
linkbuilding
volunteers:
Could you help raise our profile on the internet? We'd like a volunteer
SEO officer. We are only interested in white hat SEO
techniques
and quality, relevant links. If you know about web 2.0 and
can
suggest some interactive ideas, so much the better. Perhaps
you
can spare an hour or two a week, or maybe you could devote a week or
two during your summer holidays or until you find a permanent job.
We need one SEO volunteer with fluent English and another
with
fluent Spanish.
For
either of these volunteer roles, please email
cracyp("at")progresoverde("dot")org, explaining why you want to help us
and why you'd be great at these tasks. Let us know for how
long
you could volunteer.
There
are currently no volunteer opportunities available within Ecuador with
CRACYP. Any new Ecuador volunteer posts,
conservation opportunities,
voluntary work, reforestation projects, etc., will be published here as
soon as they are available.
There may soon be
volunteer opportunities for next year in
the Galapagos Islands, so
keep an eye on the site.
Probably they will be mostly for groups to do
voluntary manual
labour on a Galapagos conservation project. As soon as we
have volunteer information it will be posted
here, so please don't email asking about Galapagos volunteering
yet.
Please note:
-
Conditions
in Ecuador (and other developing countries) are often
difficult
and progress can be
frustratingly slow. Genuine development is a slow, long-term
process. If you want to volunteer here, you need
to
accept
that and realise that you just have to make the best of the situation
at the time you are here. 'Success' is never guaranteed.
-
Volunteer
groups: minimum 1
week, 8 people with at least one Spanish speaker.
-
Solo
volunteers: we usually suggest a minimum of 3 months to be
able to make an impact here. If
you only have a few days, we suggest you visit as a tourist
and tell us in advance that you'd like to help out
with
any tasks available while you are here.
-
We
don't have a brochure. Our volunteer opportunities are not
standard programmes, they are tailored for each individual volunteer.
Please read the website carefully
before
contacting us with questions. Don't just ask for
'more
information' - be specific.
-
Please note that we do NOT offer
any kind of paid work or paid internship, nor can we help with costs
for volunteers.
Please do not write asking for paid work, we
only offer unpaid volunteer opportunities.
-
We
can't afford to subsidise
your travel, accommodation and food - and even if we could, we would
instead use the
money to employ a local person, which would be far more sustainable.
Our fee covers
your board and
lodging and varies depending on the project you are volunteering with -
ask
us for an individual
quote, but allow perhaps $85-100 a week in rural projects in or near
San Luís de Pambíl, $150 - $180 a week in Quito
or
$220-300 a week in the Galapagos Islands. You will also need
to cover your flight and insurance;
travel around Ecuador (around $1 an hour on the buses) and local travel
in Quito (around $1 a day).
-
To apply for a volunteer
opportunity, email your cv/resume
(or a description of your group) and a letter explaining: What
you want to do, for how long and when; the skills and
experience
you have to offer; your level of Spanish, and what you want to get from
your volunteering (e.g. experience for new career; practise Spanish;
etc.) Note that whilst unskilled volunteers are welcome in
groups, solo volunteers usually need to offer some relevant skill or
experience - tell us what you can do and we will let you know what is
available. Make sure you've read the volunteering page as well.
-
You need to have enough Spanish
for basic communication,
or volunteer in a group with at least one
person who does. We can't match individual volunteers up with
groups,
so please don't ask - you need to get together your own group, or learn
enough Spanish to volunteer solo. The
better you can communicate in Spanish, the more you will get out of
your time
volunteering here. You MUST have some Spanish before you
arrive in Ecuador
and
even then we strongly suggest you spend your first few days in
Ecuador studying to improve your Spanish. There are hundreds
of Spanish
schools in Quito.
More
information about volunteering in Ecuador
Volunteer
for
Green Progress with CRACYP:
working holidays in sustainable
development, conservation and reforestation,
volunteering in rural communities
and community projects in Ecuador,
volunteer opportunities & voluntary work in Ecuador's
eco-tourism development,
openings for volunteer consultants to use their professional experience
& expertise.