As an additional element to your teaching, you can also assist in teaching in the Villa Soldatti Community Project. Villa Soldatti is the name of a shanty town within central Buenos Aires.

It is the location of one of our newest and most deserving community projects, one that is close to our hearts, and if you choose to combine it with another teaching opportunity, you'll find that it will add substantially to your feeling of accomplishment and fulfilment. 

Buenos Aires is a 24-hour city - lively, frenetic, with lots to see and do, and an exciting place to do some great work with some very underprivileged children.

WHAT YOU'LL GAIN FROM DOING THIS PROJECT:

• An exciting, never-to-be-forgotten adventure into Latin America.
• New skills, more confidence, a greater understanding of a different culture, invaluable personal and professional development.
• An entry on your CV or résumé that will put you head and shoulders above most others in the job market
• The enormous satisfaction of helping disadvantaged children and knowing that you made a difference to them
• And maybe best of all ... an unforgettable experience!


PROJECT OVERVIEW:

Teaching takes place in children's homes, primary and secondary schools and social assistance centres, with children, teenagers or single mothers. The children often come from deprived or abusive backgrounds and have been taken into care by the Justice Department. Usually they attend school during the week but most have to return to their homes over the weekend, which is often unpleasant for them. Despite these disadvantages, the children are usually warm and friendly and they need care and affection. In several homes children suffer from behavioural problems and may be far behind in their classes.
Your help is needed to provide very basic English teaching through playing or singing with the children. In some of the Homes we work in, you may need a reasonable knowledge of Spanish, but in other Homes and schools, you don’t need a knowledge of the language.

One of the many homes we work with is "Hogar Los Querubines", a home for children whose parents are infected with HIV or whose parents have died from HIV. We also work with a number of private schools in Buenos Aires where the children come from middle class backgrounds. Despite this, they are not usually rich schools and some of the children are there because they have been awarded a scholarship. To teach in a school you don't need to be able to speak Spanish as you will nearly always be an assistant to the regular English teacher.

We also help adult courses in a variety of institutions where you could teach adults of all ages. Often class sizes are small and you’ll usually be in sole charge of the class. As you can see, there are different types of teaching available, something to suit everyone!
This project can also be combined with any of our other projects in Buenos Aires, or you could even do a this Project and then follow it with another project in Mendoza. That way you’ll get a good knowledge of two very different regions of the country.


ACCOMMODATION:

There are two choices for accommodation in Buenos Aires. Depending on your preferences you can either stay in the modern hostel with other volunteers, in the young and trendy neighbourhood of Palermo, or, if you would prefer a more cultural experience, you can be placed with a host family and be fluent in Spanish is no time!


OUR VOLUNTEERS SAY...

"I'm really settling in well over here. Everyone at the hostel is friendly. I've visited all my placements now. The girls at Misericordia were so lovely and really eager to see all the postcards of London that I had brought with me. The girls at Nuñez loved looking at the pictures in my OK magazine, listening to my i-pod and chatting about what music they like in English! Buenos Aires is a great city and I can't wait to explore it moy Sre, especially as the weather is getting better everyday!" Becky Shellim