Volunteer in Costa Rica with Maximo Nivel - Best Rated Projects

My experience as a volunteer at Maximo Nivel has far exceeded any expectation that I had prior to volunteering in Costa Rica. This volunteer trip has been my first experience traveling alone and I am so grateful that I was courageous enough to take the step. Maximo Nivel helped me transition into living in Costa Rica without any problems. The support staff is great at communicating, being available, and generally being friendly people. Every time I walked into the Maximo Nivel program center, I was greeted with a smile. That small thing means a lot to someone who is new to the country and traveling alone. Moreover, my experience at Hogar Crea has also been great. I have been lucky enough to teach English to students who are excited to learn. The energy that they exhibit everyday during class is exciting and refreshing to have on a daily basis. It saddens me that I have to leave my students and return home, however I am hopeful that someone will be lucky enough to work with these students in their endeavor to learn English!

I was able to volunteer there for a week and reported directly to the awesome nurse M, who was super helpful and let me interact with the residents as much as possible despite her own amazingly busy schedule. In this week, I took some vitals, spoke to some of the residents, and got really good at shaving wrinkled faces. I was so flattered that some of the residents thought I was Costa Rican; evidently my conversational lags were lost in their slower pace of conversation. Maximo Nivel was really helpful and the coordinators all do as much as they can to help with whatever's going on. The travel service next door, M&J, is also a great place to book excursions. I had some apprehensions at first about safety as an Asian girl traveling alone, but I always felt safe with the drivers and the host family. Next time, I'm definitely staying for more than a week!!

Wow, 2 weeks already!! The time has flown by. I am so blessed to have had the opportunity to work in such a supportive environment. Coronado was such a great expirience for me, and I would definetly do it again. I was able to benifit from a variety of people and make a small impact on them all. I also gained a new apprieciation for all that I have in life. The positive energy and expirience that I encountered was amazing. The kids WANTED to learn and were always very respectful. This program went beyond my expectations, and the impact that my students had on my outlook of life will forever affect me.

I was able to work with children from La Carpio and I honestly have to say that this was an amazing experience. The reason why I say this is because I learned so much from the kids. I was able to have confidence when speaking Spanish with them. also I learned how smallest events can bring a smile on my face. There was this girl who would always give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She told me that she had fun today, becuase we were able to play hide and seek. I don't remember when was the last time I actually played for my enjoyment.
This program helped me to mature and helped me understand that smallest things can go a long way. I learned that as long as I put my effort into things I did, other will understand and be there to give me a hand when I need it!
Some tips I want to give for future volunteers in Child Care!! It would be great if you memorize a song called, "Soy una Serpiente". The kids are going to LOVE YOU! Also children love playing "Duck, Duck, Goose". Toys or any everyday materials you can find at home (toilet paper, kitchen towel, cups, etc) would be AMAZING!. I can guarantee you that you have a PURPOSE and FULLFILLMENT when working for this project!

My first day to La Carpio was somewhat intimidating. Due to the inaurguration all the buses had been moved. The confidence and flexibility of the project staff helped me relax. I had a lot of fun with the kids. They are simply amazing. At first, they seem a little shy. However, after a while they began to warm up to you. Before I left both the kids and the project staff hugged me.
The staffs in maximo are amazing. I got lost once at night, and one of the staff asked to talk to the bus driver. I end up going home safe with the bus driver pointing to where I was staying. Shout out to my host mom. Her cooking is to die for.

Experience was overall great, would do it again. I highly recommend this program in Manuel Antonio. The staff for the project are excellent and so are the workers at the project site.

I volunteered for Maximo Nivel for 4 weeks and I taught English to teenage girls. I have to say that at first I was scared to do this. Living in another country for 4 weeks, knowing little of their language and their culture and having no one there, all seemed scary to me at first. But then you get here and you meet the staff at Maximo Nivel. They are all so friendly and supportive. You meet these people and realize how much support you have here and then all your fears go away. It's not only for your project that they support you, they help you for a lot of other things too. They teach you how to use the bus, where to eat that has good quality and reasonable price, where to explore and how to take the tours to both save money and have fun and all the other things. I mean, I'm a student and I want to have fun but not spend that much money either and Andres, one of the staff, helped me so much to plan trips and trours for very cheap, I'm really grateful for that. I just knew that if anything happens I can count on them. Actually one day I was a little sick and they all helped me so much. Andres would come and check on me every 15 minutes to make sure that I was ok. It was just great to see that I have all this support here.
They also support you so much to make sure that you feel comfortable teaching and you don't have any problems with your project. Steve, Emmy and Daniel always help me on the site so I can make the most out of my teaching experience. Marta always help me and encourage me to make worksheets for my students. You think teaching English is difficult and you cannot do it? Well, yes it is a little challenging, but with all the help you have from these awesome people you can definitely do it. I don't have that much experience teaching English myself but Maximo Nivel made it totally possible for me.
And then you go to the class and you see all these students, so eager to learn and so grateful that you teach them, and your know at that moment that all the time and money you have spent are worth it. You see them learning English and becoming more and more excited and comfortable about English and all of these are so heartwarming. Their enthusiasm is adorable and they are such amazing and kind girls.
I'm truly happy that I decided to do this project with Maximo Nivel and I highly recommend it.

I volunteered in the medical project with Maximo Nivel in San Jose for 2 weeks. Maximo Nivel is a fantastic organization to work with. The staff are great and friendly. The services the agency offers are very helpful and they provide you with all the information and help you could need during your stay in San Jose. Two of the staff members working in Maximo were especially amazing. Marta, who was always super friendly with volunteers and always smiling and socializing with them, and Andres, who was amazing with volunteers. He always tried to help when he could and treated them more like friends than formally as volunteers, which made everyone much more comfortable.
As for the medical project, do not expect to get a lot of hands on work. The amount of practical skills you apply in the project are very limited and not much of a medically learning experience. It is still a learning experience because it is nevertheless a new experience. You´re putting yourself out of your comfort zone and going somewhere new and interacting with new people. However the project itself gets very repetitive because the work is limited and pretty much the same every day. I started to get bored after the first week.
But other than that, the city is greatñ definitely go exploring because that´s where the actual experiences are.
If you stay with a host family, like i did, they are absolutely fantastic. Extremely friendly.
Also, if you can brush up and learn some Spanish before you arrive, it would definitely be worth while so you´re not clueless in public. But they offer spanish courses at Maximo which are also great.