Karikuy

Our volunteer program includes free room and board and an affordable $50 a week meal plan. You will be expected to work Monday through Friday on the project and other Karikuy related material. On the weekends you are free to travel throughout Peru visiting locations such as Machu Picchu and the Nazca Lines. In addition volunteers will receive discounted rates on Karikuy tours and services.

Volunteering Information for 2010:

Price: $50 a week.

-Room and Board
-Meal plan Included, Monday through Saturday
-Monday through Friday work week
-Free wireless Internet and Utilities
(3 - 4 day weekends can be set up for excursions)
-8 hours of work (10am to 8pm lax hours with meal breaks)
-Discounted tours for weekend travel
-Holidays off
-Stress free environment

Duration:

Once accepted into the program volunteer choose how long they wish to volunteer (subject to availibility).

-Minimum stay is two weeks.
-Maximum is 6 months or the entire duration of the program.

Stays over two months require letters of reference and recommendation.

Work Expected:

-Information gathering
-Essay writing
-Web site layout
-Photo editing
-Blogging
-Video editing (not part of job requirement)
-Minor Maintenance (mostly personal cleaning, painting, etc.)

Requirements:

- Positive Attitude
- Social Skills
- Writing Experience
- Effective Team Member
- Knowledge of simple HTML and data entry
- Must own Personal Laptop
- Own Photo Camera
- Goal Oriented
- Information gathering and note taking skills
- Neat and presentable
- Adventurous

A Plus, but Not Required:

- Knowledge of CSS and Dreamweaver
- Video Editing Skills
- Own Video Camera
- Multilingual
- Tour Guide Experience
- Knowledge of Twiki software

Your goal while volunteering for Karikuy in Peru is to gather as much information on the locations you visit and the people you meet. It is your job to publish articles, stories, city facts and travel information, news and sports updates. This volunteer program can truly be a young writers dream and a perfect opportunity for bloggers and social activists to get their hands wet.

During your time in Peru you will be lodged at the Karikuy Bed and Breakfast. This home away from home is located in central Lima, 10 minutes away from the airport and 10 minutes away from the Plaza de Armas. The neighborhood is called Planeta and is as traditional a neighborhood you can get in Lima, full of life and color, this neighborhood in Cercado de Lima was one of the first squatter settlements to be recognized by the government in the 1960's. Fifty years later this middle class neighborhood continues to enchant visitors from abroad who wish experience more then a fancy hotel atmosphere but really get into the heart of Lima. Festivals, concerts and parties are common throughout Planeta and the surrounding neighborhoods.
A Day in the Life of a Volunteer
by Julio C. Tello
So lets say you have made the decision to become a volunteer, you fly out to Peru (you pay your own round trip airfare of course) and land at Jorge Chavez International Airport. You'll find me at the airport waiting to greet you and help you change any currency, just as I would any of my customers who come to Peru on one of our tours. Here's where your adventure volunteering in Peru begins. First stop is the bed and breakfast where I will show you around the house and how to use the facilities. I give you the rest of the day off to settle down and take you on a tour of the surrounding area. If it's a weekend we'll go out so you can experience Lima to see what you have gotten yourself into ha ha no joke really your going to have a lot of fun.

On your first workday you get up pretty much the time your use to, just remember you are expected to put in a good 8 hours a day into the project. I will discuss where we're at in the project and give you a starting point from which to begin. For example I could say we need to catalog and write about popular hotels in Puno, you will then get on your laptop (required) and look up the top reviewed hotels in Puno and write a good description for each with location information, current prices and contact info. You have various options in obtaining this information, you can look on the web or call the hotels personally if well versed in Spanish and ask them yourself. This is what we mean when we say the project is looking for good information gatherers.

So back to explaining your day to day as a volunteer. After a breakfast consisting of some fresh bread, eggs, oatmeal, coffee and all that good stuff you head to work. At around 1pm lunch is served, lunch being the most heavy and important meal of the day in Peru, the meal is a bowl of soup and a main course accompanied by some freshly made juice, tea or more coffee. These meal are about an hour long usually depending on how fast you eat and then it's back to work. Dinner is a lighter meal consisting of either the soup or main course from earlier in the day, if your hungry your free to have both. After dinner the clock is at about 8pm and you have an hour or so to wrap up and save any writing you have been working on. The work day normally doesn't last any later then 9 although you are free to work longer if you wish. From the time you stop working until the time you go to sleep you can surf the web, watch TV or movie, and even go out, although I caution anyone from going out at night alone. That's your average work day summed up in a nutshell.

It's also very important to me to hear what you have to say about your experiences in Peru, for that reason I will reserve one day of the week for the volunteer to write a blog about a certain subject that relates to them and their time in the country. These blogs will be posted on a new site and not on this personal blog. That platform, which will debut as soon as our first volunteers join us with the project, will be hosted on the Karikuy web site using Wordpress. This special blogging day will be Fridays unless I specify otherwise or there is a more important topic that needs finishing.

On the weekends you have the opportunity to travel throughout Peru, I would recommend visiting Cusco and Machu Picchu. For longer planned trips I am more then glad to give you a 3 day weekend and even a 4 day weekend depending on the location and the circumstances. I will also honor Birthdays and other Holidays that may be personal or religious. Depending on where you wish to visit, know that you will receive the lowest possible price Karikuy can get you for your travels. All we ask is that while you are away you always carry a notepad with you to jot down information on locations, transportation, prices and news. All this gathered information is extremely valuable in order to help the Perupedia project grow. When possible and if you request I can accompany you on some tours, giving you my expertise on certain locations and helping you with your information gathering.

I have described your work on the project above as information gathering, however at any time and depending on your qualities I could ask you to put a short video together, or to help with the layout of the Perupedia site and edit other sections. Remember that the Perupedia project is very open ended and that there will be other volunteers working from their own homes uploading information into the site from around the world. One of your jobs will be to review these additions and check for errors or misinformation. On occasion I may even ask you to clean your room ha ha if your not too neat that is, or maybe to help me paint a part of the Bed and Breakfast and do repairs, all of these being minor physical work. I hope I have given you a good picture of how volunteers can expect to spend their days in the country. I also want to add that parties and social events are very common so as to not make the program seem uneventful. Peruvians love to dance and have a good time and I am certain you will too.

Peru is a great place to volunteer and I really hope to have a great time with some of you who qualify for this project. Although this isn't your more traditional Peruvian volunteer program, please understand that you are doing a great service to people around the world who wish to know more about Peru , its culture and people. This ultimate reference of Peru will have it's place on the Internet as the most thorough database on Peru and has the opportunity of becoming a focal point on attracting more attention to the social and political issues that affect the country. Depending on the success of this project (which is entirely up to the volunteers, I could never do it all myself) I will choose to open similar projects for other South American countries that would have volunteers be boarded abroad as well. For now I will take it one step at a time and invite you to come to Peru to get to know the country and then share it with the world.