Avivara     

Volunteering - The Heart of our Program
The central component of our Service and Study Abroad (SAGE) Program is to support the efforts of those people who have a strong sense of social justice and want to make a difference in their world.  We accomplish that by helping them locate meaningful volunteer experiences that address a variety of social issues in Guatemala.

With our history of working with over 600 foreign volunteers coming to Guatemala, we have found that the volunteer experience is often a mixture of hope, joy, challenge, frustration, and deep satisfaction. How a volunteer processes and works through all of those feelings depends upon the attitude of the volunteer, finding a good "fit" between the volunteer and the project or agency that he or she will be working with, and having a support system to help make sense of things when the volunteering becomes difficult.

Some examples of projects where we can help to place volunteers include schools, after-school educational reinforcement centers, a hospital for severely disabled children, environmental projects, housing construction projects, and projects promoting community development and empowerment.

Before recommending a Guatemalan social service agency for volunteer placement to our clients, the staff of Avivara evaluates each agency on the following criteria:

• Demonstrated benefit to and support from their local community
• Standards and policies that ensure fair and equitable treatment of both clients and volunteers
• Project leadership that is stable and supportive of volunteer effort
• In a location that is not considered dangerous for foreigners
• Within reasonable traveling distance from the student's housing and the Avivara facilities

As part of our pre-trip planning services, we can provide our clients with a summary of the organizations where we have placed volunteers and an objective evaluation of each project's strengths and weaknesses. (Other than the schools we work with directly and the after-school learning centers that we support, Avivara has no financial connections with any the organizations that we list as possible volunteer placements.) We feel that this is a very important component of our program, since we have seen many well-intentioned volunteers come to Guatemala, only to be disappointed and disgruntled with the organization they have volunteered with because of lack of support and/or poor service to their clients.

After consulting with our staff and reviewing the characteristics (and requirements) of the various volunteer placements offered, our clients may choose a particular agency or project that they would most like to work with. From that point, our staff will help facilitate communications between the client and the volunteer project. This would include:

• Informing the client of and assisting with the agency's application process
• Orientation and introduction to the leadership of the organization where the volunteer will be working
  
• Ongoing consultation with clients regarding their volunteer experience (This would also include mediation services with the community agency in the case of misunderstanding or conflict.)

It is our belief that working with others with different cultural perspectives to solve common problems is one of the most growth-producing experiences that a person can have. It is not without its challenges however, and that is why the staff at Avivara will always be available to help volunteers work through challenging issues if and when they arise. One of the values that we hold to closely is that it is through service to others that we come to know more about who we truly are.