Volunteer in Peru: Medicine, Childcare, Teaching, and Animal Rescue

My name is Stella, I am 18 years old, and I was an intern at NGO Taxi for the past 3 months. After school, it was clear to me that I would do a gap year before studying at a University to see the world and to use this time to orientate myself. I didn't want to travel only from place to place, but I wanted to emerge into another country’s culture and way of living. When I read the description of the internship in Cuzco it matched exactly what I had imagined in my mind: be in one of the most beautiful cities of South America, in a country that has a lot of historical and cultural background and to be able to contribute a social act to society while at the same time learning so many new things about organization, marketing and communication.
I have to say that I really enjoyed my time in Cuzco because there are so many places in the area to explore and there is always a change of people in the HQ apartment. Although I only had one week of Spanish class because I already knew how to speak Spanish, I think that it is well organized and the teacher does a great job. Besides the classes she invited us plenty of times to show us how Pisco sour is made, to Salsa classes, to share typical food together or to go to a poor hospital and give the people sandwiches and hot chocolate.
As an intern I learned a lot about how an NGO works and about marketing strategies. In addition, another volunteer and me developed a new sport project . As you can manage your time individually you have the freedom to work whenever you want as long as you finish all the expected tasks. At first, I found it strange that we had no own office, but in the end I loved to sit in one of the cute cafés in San Blas and work from there, and I was happy to have time to do sports, paint in my sketchbook and learn for the TOEFL test in my free time.