Traveller Not Tourist

Niña Cusqueña acompañada de sus bellas alpacas.🦙😍
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Fotaza 📸

Síguenos Perú Es Súper 🇵🇪

So beautiful!

Our volunteers, Lauren and James from the Uk and Lara from Germany, sharing time with the children of the kindergarden during the school´s anniversary.

Pod Volunteer, our partner volunteer recruitment organisation, has a unique and exciting opportunity for a new team member to join them in their UK Cheltenham office as a Pod Volunteer Specialist!

Pod Volunteer is an award winning non-profit organisation arranging ethical, inspiring and supported volunteering opportunities around the world. The Pod Volunteer Specialist's role is to recruit, support and manage volunteers, as well as oversee a range of Pod Volunteer’s projects.

To find out more about this role and how to apply you can visit their website here: https://www.podvolunteer.org/jobs

Welcome to our new volunteers Molly and Sophie from the UK, hope you enjoy working with the little ones and visiting our beautiful country!

Welcome to Arequipa Maud from France and Preston from USA!

Welcome to our new volunteer Alice from France, she is going to help in the Girls Home!

Welcome to our new volunteers Sarah from the UK, Gabrielle and Jacob from the USA!

Thanks Tatjana, from Switzeland, for giving your time and love to the kids of the kindergarden in Arequipa - Peru.

A big thank you to our amazing volunteer, Jasmine from Germany, for giving her time and love to the kids in the kindergarden!

Our incredible volunteers, Ombelline and Tessa from France, helping the girls with their school tasks!

Many thanks to our excellent volunteer, Ombelline from France, she worked for two months simultaneously on two projects: The Girls Home and The Kindergarden. She also collected money from her relatives and friends in France to help the Girls Home and a Childrens Home in Arequipa with food and the daily expenses of the houses. We hope that life returns to you all the love, enthusiasm, generosity and happiness that you gave to all the children.

A million thanks to our excellent volunteer Claudia from Rumania for her generosity, dedication and love for the children. You have been a ray of sunshine in their lives and in our lives. We hope to see you again next year. A million kisses and hugs on behalf of everyone ...

This does happen, and it is terrible.

We don't currently send volunteers to any orphanages but we did work with one for a number of years and it really upsets me to see our work being tarred with the same brush as these completely gut wrenching scams.

The orphanage we worked with and subsequently helped build a new home for was registered with the Peruvian equivalent of the UK's Children's Services (or Social Services as it used to be called). They referred children to the orphanage for short-term care until the family was deemed fit to take them back (after any concerns were dealt with), they were placed with extended family or, as a last resort, they were adopted.

The staff at the orphanage worked extremely hard to care for the children, as any of our volunteers will tell you. Each child has a designated key worker who acts as their main carer during their time at the orphanage. Our volunteers went in to support these staff. Having our volunteers there meant that a "Tia" (Aunt in Peruvian) who had been up all night with a sick baby could go and have a nap or one could pop out to the shops to buy essential items, or just have a rest! Anyone who has cared for children long-term knows how important this is.

So yes, please be really vigilant when choosing where and how to spend your precious time (and money) but please don't tar all orphanage volunteer programmes with the same brush.

We were told many times that the Tia's could not have done all that they did (support and nurture scores of neglected and abused children at a turning point in their lives) without us there.

Most children in orphanages are not orphans Orphanages have become a lucrative business in developing countries, leading to the trafficking of children to fill them

Please read the message below if you volunteered with Matt Starr in May/June 2010.

"All - I’m reaching out in hopes that you can perhaps help provide any insights, stories or added contacts that you may remember. My brother, Matt Starr, spent time in Peru and specifically in Arequipa through Traveller Not Tourist during May and early June of 2010. He worked in a school while there (Flora Tristan) and absolutely fell in love with the people and the culture, talking about it for years after and even creating an album of his amateur photography (that we all deemed progressional!) from his experience.

Unfortunately in 2016, our family lost Matt but his wonderful memory lives on. My dad and I are traveling to Peru to keep those memories alive, and I’m hopeful that someone may have a recollection of their time with him, stories, moments, etc. Any kind of remembrance would mean the world! Feel free to reply to this comment or send me a private message on FB. I’m especially grateful to Jay (Traveller Not Tourist’s Founder) for being so incredibly kind in my search.

Grateful for anyone’s insights - and thank you all for whatever role you may have played or are currently playing in serving others!

Thanks so much - Rachel Starr"

If you volunteered with Matt, and are in touch with other volunteers who were there at the same time, please tag them to make sure they see this post.

Thanks all and thank you Matt.

Jay Byrd
Founder

Welcome to our new volunteers Claudia from Rumania and Catherine from the Uk they will support the kids of the community of Zamacola in Arequipa-Peru.

Just got reminded that this article exists. Very sweet.

Jay Chavez Empowering Children Below Poverty Line