Sample Volunteer Abroad Projects — Mexico
Several projects are available throughout Mexico mainly in working rural communities and often with native Indian peoples. The following is a sample of projects available. Volunteers should be prepared to be flexible with regard to their project placement.
Community Development - Education - Ecotourism Initiatives
Community Development Projects:
Fighting poverty by empowering women, in Veracruz, Chiapas or Yucatan
Worldwide, social research results have shown that when a woman has a regular income she will spend it mostly in her children’s benefit. This income will help to secure for them food and to facilitate their access to education, bringing positive changes not only to their household but to the whole community.
The Maya Nut Program focuses on women as the caretakers of the family and the environment. Its main aim is to help indigenous and marginalized women to find ways to produce food, to earn income and raise healthy families without destroying their environment. The program has demonstrated positive and lasting impacts on rainforest conservation, reforestation, maternal health, infant nutrition, food security and the empowerment of women.
The Maya Nut is a 100% organic, non-GMO forest product high in nutrients which grows naturally in fertile rainforest soils. The Maya Nut is the fruit of a tree call commonly “Ramon”. The Program focuses on helping indigenous and marginalized women to find ways to produce food, to earn income and to raise healthy families without destroying their environment.
In general volunteers will collect, select and dry up seeds, and set up plants nurseries and parcels. In Veracruz, the volunteer might also take part in cooking sessions where women of the community learn how to use the flour got from the seed, and in the promotion of activities of the project in the local towns and cities to encourage other women to use the seeds.
In Yucatan volunteers will also work with the women’s cooperative in the organization and implementation of workshops to teach other women about the benefits of the Mayan Nut. They will also take part and organize talks on issues as family nutrition, healthy cooking and environment care awareness. Women also need help to develop strategies to market and sell their products in the region properly, so participants with knowledge on the field are very welcomed.
In Chiapas volunteers will be working in cooking workshops; helping local women to get familiar with solar ovens and test recipes in them; collecting seeds, developing the nursery and recording the fauna of the area.
While working in the subprogram called "Healthy forests, healthy kids" volunteers will be helping picking up nuts, processing them into flour, baking nutritious cakes and preparing milkshakes; delivering the above in "breakfast" sessions to local kids, helping in didactic activities with them, starting greenhouses and planting seeds. They will also be monitoring the size and height of the kids working along with women from the community and students from the University of Chiapas
Lodging is in very basic housing, with latrines, in the wonderful Reserve of the Biosphere Montes Azules. Aproximately 4.5 hours from San Cristobal de las Casas.
Ninos Encantados de la Barra de Potosi - Charmed Kids of Barra de Potosi - Guerrero
Barra de Potosí is a small fishing village located on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, in the State of Guerrero, 25 minutes away from the Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo beach resort. Like any other small community on the edge of big tourist resorts, Barra de Potosi is in danger of losing its traditional identity as outside investors and developers seek to exploit its location and facilities. Now local residents are coming together to try and protect and preserve the values and traditions of their community.
“Niños Encantados de la Barra de Potosi”, (Charmed Kids of Barra de Potosi) has its main goal to provide opportunities for the children of the village. However it also raises an awareness and pride in the traditions and folklore of the community.
It began with donation of gifts and money to create a bank of school
supplies for children in the village school and led to the purchase and conversion of a small house in the village for use as a children’s library. Children go there to do their homework and art and drama activities and various workshops also take place. However much more needs to be done to improve the building and to increase the activities and services available within the project. Click here to read a story from a past volunteer to Barra.
Highly motivated volunteers with initiative are required to take over different tasks, from office work to homework guidance, coordination of art, language or music workshops, sport activities or reading circles. The project has few resources and facilities and volunteers who are resourceful, flexible and willing to improvise and introduce new activities are especially welcome. This project especially can use volunteer work all year around. Volunteers are welcome for 4 weeks up to 6 months.
Working with Special Needs Kids in Amecameca
Amecameca is a small city of the State of Mexico, located about an hour and a half away in the south-east of Mexico City and 45 mins. away from Cuernavaca. Surrounded by beautiful mountains and situated at the foot of the Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl volcanoes, the city has one of the most impressive views of these snow-clad symbols of endless love. Walking and hill hiking fans enjoy all year around the facilities of the nearby Park Ixta-Popo; and during winter time the Park of the Xmas Trees attract families that want to bring home a tree that they cut themselves after learning a little bit about environmental issues.
Volunteers in Amecameca will share their time working with two projects that support kids from poor backgrounds with Cerebral paralysis, Down Syndrome or Autism, imparing hearing and mental retardation among other conditions.
The CAM-Frida Kahlo, is a mixed school that is open only during weekdays; and the Pequeño Cottolengo Mexicano, is a permanent house for boys only.
Volunteers at CAM will help teachers and therapists with groups of 8 up to 12 kids, either in Physical activities, art and body expressions workshops, early stimulation sessions, or during lunch time in the dining room. They can also help in the maintenance of the installations: growing a garden and painting walls surrounding the Center, or supervising and cleaning the workshops areas.
The special program for older students offers training in computers, jewelry making, candy making and baking, and prepare participants to sell their products in local shops. The income generated in this way is divided between the school support and the students’ personal expenses. Volunteers can take part in the workshops or as chaperons of the kids when they go out to do business.
Volunteers in Cottolengo will help with daily chores such as cleaning or maintenance, helping in the kitchen or dining room serving meals and supervising the kids, assisting the teachers in their classes, helping the younger kids with their exercises and organizing evening games. Participants could teach some kids how to grow vegetables, or involved them in drama or art creation workshops. To share time with them is the most important part of the experience, in words of the kids’ mentors: “they need to get to know people and feel loved”.
Since September 2009 eight Cottolengo kids attend classes at CAM-Frida Kahlo so volunteers could be in charge also of supervising their home works and attitudes and feelings in the new environment, as well as monitoring their life experiences outside the house. Volunteers taking part in this project will live with a local host family in Amecameca, usually living at walking distance from CAM.
Recovering Ancient Traditions - Santa Catarina Minax, Oaxaca
Santa Catarina Minas is a small town located about 40 minutes away from Oaxaca City. Five percent of the population there is dedicated to the production of “mezcal”, a beverage similar to tequila. From the rest, almost a 40% of locals need to leave Minas to work in Oaxaca City to make an income and a large number of young people in their twenties leave definitely the town.
A small group of locals has started the plan to recover and preserve traditional agricultural practices to achieve two main goals: to recover old ways of working the soil relying on the old concept of communal spirit equals common good, and to create new self employment opportunities. 
In Minas the old indigenous “uses and customs law system” still survives and it is being applied to improve the quality of life of the town. Under a very well organized “Comisaria” those who make use of “common land” to grow grains or agave for their personal benefit have the responsibility to dedicate some of their free time to help to solve community problems.
Under the guide of the “comisario”, counsellors from each “barrio”, including women, spend some hours every week giving advice, suggesting or designing action plans to attack some of the problems that the community face such as the need to secure the supply of water, the need to create ways of self employment, to find ways to attack the deforestation process in the area, the need to create spaces for young people and kids to spend their free time, etc.
The group that forms the “Comisaria” at Minas needs help to support its plans of action on the following areas:
a. Education. To adapt a section of the building where the Comisaria group sessions and works, as a small public library. English classes would be very useful both for kids as well as young adults. Dancers, artists, and musicians can also use their experience to encourage the development of different skills among the kids of Minas.
b. Environment. To organize reforestation groups and promote the participation of a larger number of young people. Besides the implementation of basic ecological ideas in housing, volunteers may contribute to the making of fuel saving stoves and solar panels.
c. Women's issues. Young, uneducated mothers find it very hard to cope with financial responsibility which can itself lead to other problems. Volunteers might be involved in campaigns to help women access funds to start their own micro business or help them to support women who are escaping from domestic violence and abuse.
d. Community spirit. Counsellors plan walking day trips to the mountains and rivers around teaching others about the florae and fauna existing there. With the belief that only by knowing the beauty of their land new generations will be capable of defending it, the Comisaria wants to offer this day trips in a periodically basis if there is a volunteer helping with the organization, motivation to take part and collecting feedback from the experience.
e. Ecotourism project. The “Comisaria” would like to build up ecological cabins where the community could host people interested in knowing more about the implementation of traditional ways of cultivating the land, to discover the surroundings and take part in green workshops and buy local products.
This project especially requires volunteers all year around. Volunteers are welcome for 4 weeks up to 6 months.
LA VENTANILLA ECO-TOURISM PROJECT , IN OAXACA
The Co-operative project in the beach village of La Ventanilla in Oaxaca State was set up to stop the killing and selling of turtles and their eggs and has grown in to a sustainable development project which generates alternative sources of income for the local people. It is located in a small beach village in a large mangrove zone just 60 minutes away from Huatulco and Puerto Escondido beach resorts. Twenty five families living in the village are actively involved in the co-operative which has among its goals to rescue the natural habitat of hundreds of species of birds and reptiles and the promotion of eco-tourism.
The co-operative started operating tours along the mangrove swamp and offering horseback riding tours to generate an extra income. They have also established a tree nursery housing 70,000 plants of mangle and other local varieties, a crocodile farm and nurseries for turtles and iguanas.
This project requires volunteers all year around for periods of 4 weeks up to 3 months.
Volunteer activities might include cleaning and preparation of the eco-friendly tourist cabins, to assist in the community owned restaurant “El maíz azul” (“The blue corn”), helping in the rehabilitation of confiscated animals and the release of newly-hatched turtles into the ocean. Between August and October, for example, volunteers could take part in night patrol canoe trips to find turtle’s nests, to collect and record eggs, and to bring them to the nursery. Participants will also help in the organisation and development of workshops to recycle paper, aluminium, plastic and coconut fibre; as well as in the daily cleaning of the beach, the dock and the island; and in the planting and harvesting of ornamental and fruit trees.
