San Pedro Belize - High School Special Public Health Placement

My 17 year old daughter just arrived home following a two week High School Specials Public Health Placement in San Pedro, Belize. This was supposed to be an amazing learning opportunity that would help her make decisions regarding her future including her desire to pursue Nursing as a career and to gain skills towards further travels abroad. The provided itinerary seemed very "full" and exciting with a balance of volunteer work time during the day and evening social/recreational activities. This seemed perfect as my daughter is a very active young woman who thrives on being "busy". The composition of the placement was NOT what the itinerary reflected.
Our daughter was one of seven girls participating in this placement. They traveled each day to the Projects Abroad office, which is where they spent more than 50% of their daytime hours each day. Sometimes, it was the whole day. The amount of time they needed to be in this location was a fraction of this - so much time was spent talking to each other or being on their phones/laptops to pass the time. The staff would not adjust the schedule and certainly did not work to find them other things to do. Any time spent in the field ACTIVELY volunteering (as my daughter had assumed she would be doing), was thoroughly enjoyed and rewarding. Following much time spent in a small office most days, the girls then went back to their very small apartment where all seven of them stayed. Some nights they had activities but when they did not, the girls had to stay from 5:00 pm onwards in this location as they were not allowed to leave unsupervised and there were no staff members to take them out. After we complained as parents, this slowly started to change but our daughter perceived that the request for exercise or outings in the community were an "inconvenience" rather than an expectation.
Most importantly, our daughter and her close friend who attended with her were ready to come home after a few days. They were bored, frustrated and very sad to be so sedentary in such a beautiful country with so many opportunities to volunteer, help and make a difference. To have sent them this far to primarily sit in office space or an apartment seems unacceptable - especially given how expensive the placement was and what we perceived the activity level was going to be. Following much discussion, we convinced our daughters to stay and finish the placement. They are glad that they did as there were rewarding moments but many of their lasting memories are not positive ones.
I am choosing to post this information as all of these complaints were raised with our placement supervisor throughout the two weeks. She was at times responsive but mostly defensive. Change was forced on the staff but we did not think that so much effort should be needed on our part to have acceptable conditions or experience. We would NEVER recommend this company to anyone moving forward and are very disappointed by the outcomes. We are hoping to protect others from the same experience and can only hope that by making the information public, it will result in some change moving forward.