Project Life
Short-Term Volunteer Community Building Projects in Honduras

Volunteers will work with their chosen individual project until it is finished, which will be within one week! Days start early to eat breakfast with your host family before catching the pick-up to the relevant project site and arriving to start work at about 7.30am. You will then work with the corresponding family for whom you are funding and working on your project, until around midday when you will eat lunch and return to Copán to start Spanish classes at 2pm.

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.

See up to date info on the project Blog

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. On top of this, you will also be funding a new set of cooking utensils and pots, vital for the family going forward. You will work alongside a local mason and the family, mixing cement and constructing the stove from start to finish.

Some facts about 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, which could be a guided tour of the Copán Ruins, horseback riding, hiking in the surrounding areas around Copán or swimming in the hot springs.