Hi,
I will be traveling to Cochabamba in June and plan to volunteer with Sustainable Bolivia (www.sustainablebolivia.org). Has anyone volunteered with them? If so what was your experience like? Do you recommend them? Any tips, suggestions, insight, feedback?
Thanks!
Searching the internet (via Google) for sustainablebolivia.org will lead to http://www.travelblog.org/Forum/Threads/279-1.html where Sustainable Bolivia is positively mentioned.
A search here at the Thorn Tree for: "Sustainable Bolivia" (with quotation marks) leads to the thread "Bolivia for a year", 14-Sep-2007, where Sustainable Bolivia is mentioned.
About posting here at TT: Apparently you have posted your question in the general South America branch. If you want more replies, I suggest that you post direct in the Bolivia forum. (If so, please mention that you have posted in the general SA branch, and now want to ask direct in the country forum, hoping to get more replies).
Hi Woodley, as living in Cochabamba for quite some time, I also got know the makers of Sustainable Bolivia and its merry group of volunteers. Sustainable Bolivia is an organisation which intends to make a difference among all the other organisations placing volunteers where help is needed. The idea of reinvesting the money paid by the volunteers into the work of social institutions in Cochabamba seems to me the only way to do it.
Good luck and for more information about Cochabamba, also have a look at: http://www.bolivia-online.net
I was passing through Bolivia and when I got to Cochabamba, I decided that I wanted to stay for a bit. It's the kind of city where it's really easy to just stay and hang out. I stumbled upon Sustainable Bolivia and couldn't be happier to have done so. They set me up with an awesome volunteer opportunity with a local orphanage. The kids were great and the staff was so welcoming.
Living in the Sustainable Bolivia volunteer house was also a fantastic experience. It was a really diverse group of people- a few from Holland, two from the U.S., and one from London. We had a really good time exploring Cochabamba together and it was nice to have people to share my down time with.
Overall, I think that Sustainable Bolivia is a really amazing organization. It is genuinely committed to helping the people of Cochabamba and to giving volunteers the most for their money.
Have fun! And eat lots and lots of saltenas!