A Real Contribution to The Local Community

I was hesitant to volunteer with any NGO while in South America due to a lack of my Spanish language, however I did, and I found HOOP a great experience that had a real impact in the local community.
The children are encouraged to attend every day (Mon to Fri) and most do. The mothers of the children are engaged by volunteers who run health and other workshops during the kids classes. The smaller children who don't yet attend the English classes still come to the school and play and are involved, it's a great atmosphere with respect going both ways.
I lived separately from the hostel as I had already been in Arequipa some time, but found the volunteers living in the hostel and the HOOP staff were very inclusive of me even though I wasn't around as much outside of the school hours.
The great thing about HOOP is that you have responsibility here, they don't just give you a sheet and tell you to do it, if you notice that the kids are having trouble on a particular area of English, you have the leave to focus on that. You can teach how you want to for the most part, which for myself, who had never taught before, found this was great as I did what I was comfortable with. All the volunteers share ideas and talk about what they're up to, so ideas are plentiful.
Had a great experience here and so glad I did jump in and do it! Even with no teaching experience I found that I had support from the HOOP team to feel confident to command a class of 20+ hyper fantastic kids!
The great thing about Hoop is seeing physical progress, at the end of my time I had kids saying things that I had taught them in only the time I was there!