Project Life
Short-Term Volunteer Community Building Projects in Guatemala

Volunteers will work with their chosen individual project until it is finished, which will be within one week. The first two days will be dedicated to the Spanish Classes. Following this, days start early with eating breakfast with the host family, before travelling to the relevant project site and arriving to start work at about 8am. You will then work with the family for whom you are funding and working on your project until late afternoon, before traveling back with the other volunteers, arriving back in Antigua at around 5pm.

See up to date info on the project Blog

The Projects

Each project/task is designed to be started and finished within one week. GVI and leaders of the communities have conducted numerous surveys, investigations and meetings to find out what the community leaders and families really want and need. It should be noted that the following projects have been approved by members of the communities.

The following project areas are ones we have decided are most needed and beneficial for the local indigenous families to confront the problems mentioned above.

Economic stove building

Almost all indigenous families use wood-burning stoves to cook. With your funding and work, we can build one stove for one family within a week. You will be funding all the materials and local masonry work. You will work alongside a local mason and the family, mixing cement and constructing the stove from start to finish.

Facts on the Stoves

• They are simple wood-burning stoves made from cement, block and bricks that encase the fire and provide a chimney to vent smoke out of the home.
• They cut down the amount of smoke and carbon dioxide in the home by 70%.
• They use 75% less firewood than three-stone fires thus saving resources and time used collecting firewood.
• They add 10-15 years of life to every person in the household.
• They protect small children from major burns and women from losing their eyesight prematurely.
• In September 2000, the member states of the United Nations unanimously adopted the Millennium Declaration that set in place the Millennium Development Goals of reducing poverty by 2015. The stoves greatly contribute to the goal of reducing child mortality by two-thirds by 2015.

Adventure

Included in your package is a half-day guided adventure activity, whether this is rock climbing, mountain biking or hiking in the surrounding areas around Antigua. You, along with a professional guide, will have time to mountain bike or hike around the surrounding areas of Antigua and beyond. If biking isn’t your thing and you prefer the heights, you will be guided on some of Guatemala’s best rock climbing cliffs.