Diverse opportunities for volunteers to join projects that aim to tackle the social issues faced by many communities in the vibrant city of Buenos Aires.  They include working with orphaned children, working as teaching assistants and running recreational workshops.

You can join for 2 weeks up to 12 weeks all year round and we have places all throughout 2013 and 2014 available.

Individuals, groups and couples all welcome.

The Project

• Working with Orphaned Children
• English Teacher's Assistant in a Primary school
• Working in a Community Soup Kitchen
• Working in the Organic Garden of a Psychiatric Hospital
• Working in a Kindergarten

For further details on each project, please click here

Please note that you can join this programme even if you have no Spanish skills. We can also arrange for you to take an intensive Spanish course in the first week of your stay in Argentina, to get your language skills to a level where you will be able to participate in any of the projects.

For those with advanced to intermediate Spanish ability, we also have several other projects available in Buenos Aires, Bariloche, Iguazu and Bolivia, as well as professional internship opportunities. For further information please email Aaron.

These Spanish lessons are available for all volunteers, no matter your Spanish ability. Lessons are priced at £6.50 ($10) per hour for group lessons and £10 ($15) per hour for individual lessons, at 10 hours of lessons per week. Discount-price courses of lessons are also available; 2 hours of group lessons per day for 2 weeks, costs £115 ($170), and 4 hours per day for 2 weeks, costs £210 ($310). Argentine Tango lessons can also be arranged.

Working with Orphaned Children in Buenos Aires
Around 40 children and adolescents have found a new home in three small houses outside the city of Buenos Aires; children who have been abandoned by their parents, others whose parents have been imprisoned or are in rehabilitation for psychological problems. Some of the children are HIV positive; many of them have behavioural disorders. Almost all come from poor areas and have suffered poverty, violence, mistreatment and the effects of drug abuse. There is little stability in their lives. However, the orphanages allows the children to learn to love and gives them the attention their own families cannot.

Each home houses around 15 children and two people taking care of them at a time. As a volunteer, you will work for up to 4 hours a day, 3-4 times a week. Tasks include helping to organise toys, helping to prepare meals, laying the table for the children, helping to feed the younger children, helping to wash up, clearing the dining room and kitchen, picking up children from school or kindergarten, putting them to bed, playing with and looking after toddlers, taking younger kids to the park and so on.

Minimum stay 4 weeks

English Teacher's Assistant in a Primary school in Buenos Aires

Volunteer in a bilingual elementary school in Buenos Aires, for children aged 6 to 13 years. Besides teaching English and basic subjects such as math and science, the school organises art workshops so that the children develop comprehensively.

The goal for the school's teaching methods is for the children to be open-minded, so that they develop a critical mind and are individuals with a social conscience. It encourages participation, discussion of ideas and learning to listen to others. The school needs volunteers who speak native English to help the teachers in giving classes. Tasks will include:

• Helping the teachers to prepare classes and workshops
• Practising reading, writing, listening skills, grammar and vocabulary with the students
• Creating special workshops for the students
• Helping the students to prepare fror their international exams

Minimum stay 4 weeks

Working in a Community Soup Kitchen in Buenos Aires
This community centre not only gives lunch to more than 100 people every day, but it also has a distribution kitchen (like a food bank) that allows families to take food home with them once or twice a week so that they can prepare supper and eat with their families.

As a volunteer, you will be helping to prepare lunch and learning the secrets of traditional Argentinean food, and also helping serve the food and drink and collect the plates.

The people who work in the different areas of the community centre have lunch in the centre every day and so volunteers have the to opportunity to mix with the locals and practice speaking Spanish not only with the people who work in the kitchen but with everyone who comes to eat. Volunteers will also not only help the people who lunch in the centre but also many school children from the area.

Minimum stay 2 weeks

Working in the Organic Garden of a Psychiatric Hospital in Buenos Aires
This psychiatric hospital is one of the few psychiatric hospitals in Buenos Aires and is home to more than 1300 patients. The organic garden was created by Argentinean volunteers to give the patients and the neighbourhood community a crafted space to see the growth of crops, to learn and to share in the open-air.

Volunteers will have the opportunity to:

• Help with planting, watering and removing weeds,
• Be friendly and patient with the patients who are looking to feel free in the space of the garden,
• Talk with the psychologists and professionals who visit the garden and contribute ideas to share with the patients,
• Implement recycling rules and the re-use of materials,
• Talk to patients (it is a wonderful chance for them to gain confidence in people and an opportunity for volunteers to practice their Spanish),
• Learn about environmental responsibility and implement organic initiatives. New ideas and a desire to build an ecological project are welcome!

Volunteers can also learn about crops and landscaping. The coordinators and patients make the pesticides and herbicides needed for the garden. They use natural materials that assure an organic production. The patients who work in the garden and visit it are in advanced stages of healing and are nearing full recovery and their release. The garden is an excellent way to begin to reintegrate the patients into the community and society.

Minimum stay 4 weeks

Working in a Kindergarten in Buenos Aires
This Kindergarten is located on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, next to an old landfill site. About 40 children in the age 3-5 attend everyday while their parents are working. The kindergarten is an educational centre where the kids can develop both intellectually and emotionally.

As a volunteer, you will:

• Help the two teachers cook and serve the food, do the dishes, the cleaning or any other tasks there are to be done,
• Interact with the children through games, songs, drawings and workshops,
• Help to take care of the children,
• Help to plan the activities in the kindergarten,
• Teach the children numbers, the alphabet in Spanish, their first English words etc,
• Maintain personal contact and be a role model for the kids,
• Offer advice if necessary.

Minimum stay 2 weeks

Additional details

For more information regarding this opportunity, please visit the main project page here, or contact Aaron here. The application form can be found here, though it is advised that applicants express interest before applying, in order to discuss personal situations.