Posted by Kaya Responsible Travel on July 14th, 2011.
Voluntary Jobs
Location: Amazon, Ecuador
Closing Date: August 13th, 2011
Job Description
The Project
Become a volunteer in Ecuador and join this unique project that works using a holistic market-based approach to blend sustainable economic development, cultural preservation and conservation beneath the Amazonian rainforest canopy. By working directly with indigenous farming families, this innovative social enterprise seeks to regenerate the cultivation of guayusa, a native holly plant used for thousands of years in traditional tea ceremonies. The project works to generate additional incomes based on a fair-trade market mechanism as well as sustaining natural resources by training farmers in permaculture and integrated land use. Importantly, this project also works to restore the ancestral cultural tradition of tea drinking and story-telling. The primary volunteer project, based at a former animal rescue centre, still teems with squirrel monkeys, crocodiles, turtles and other friends from the animal kingdom who’ll keep you company while you work.
Why the project needs you
With the project’s unique combination of environmental, social and business aspects in its work, volunteers receive an opportunity to participate in diverse areas to support the growth of this budding social enterprise. The focus of the volunteer program is working on the foundation’s new Conservation, Training, and Research Centre. With 28 hectares of land there is always plenty of work to be done. Volunteers are needed all year round to help maintain the diverse range of tree and fruit species and agroforestry plots.
Role of the volunteer
Volunteers will work primarily in our diverse nurseries of organically managed tree and fruit species, and assist our technicians and engineers in the creation and maintenance of organic agroforestry plots, including routine weeding and maintenance (always a challenge to stay on top of in the regenerating rainforest) and composting management. All volunteers also partner with our field technicians to visit individual family farms, participate in cultural exchange events and guayusa tea ceremonies, and have the opportunity to develop their own research projects in areas such as agroecology, environmental management, development studies, international relations, botany or Fair Trade, among many other disciplines.
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