My first and last Volunteer

The worst time of my life. For me the worst was that I totally wasted my time and my money.

Lets speak about the work that is done there. A good initial point is the general meeting of Mondays. It will be spoken in hardly 40 minutes about nothing, getting zero conclusions of nothing and always trying to hurry to finish as soon as possible. The feeling of frustration of getting nothing done is incredible. During the week will be organized maximal 2 or 3 english lessons. Thats all. Is that really the "profound inpact" that the organization is going to have in the community? To have not even 5 hours of activities during the week having always at least 3 or 4 people working theoretically 20 hours a week? Thats not my idea of volunteer work. And thats because the focus of the organization is just on doing marketing to trick more people and get their money. I can truly say the efforts of the organization are 90% on Marketing and 10% on the rest.

If you see the contract, besides of saying absolutely nothing useful it looks like more like a Travel agency than a "ONG" and that is exactly what ETIV is for me , just a bad and expensive travel agency for foreigners. I see only one difference between both. With a real travel agency you would pay much fewer money to get a real holidays.

Thats a good point to speak about the prices. They will charge you 900 reais, thats about 250 USD per month, for a room with moisture, some of them without doors, in a house without warm water and really noisy and far far away from the city center. Not to say that 3 volunteers where attacked in their very first days and they lost money and their smartphones. Speaking again about the 250 USD you will pay for the room. It may seem to be cheap for you. If you are living now in the first world. USA, Europe or some other countries. But what If I tell you that the rent of the whole house cost just 1000 reais pro month, or that the owner of the ONG lives in a luxury mansion of more than 200 square meters with a huge garten for just 1000 reais? Would you still find the price fair? That not for telling that right in the city center, in Pasarela or Pituba, you would find exactly the same, or even better, for just 400 or 500 reais.
Furthermore besides of the rent It is paid already a volunteer fee, why the hell has to be paid such an abusive price for a disgusting place?

The owner/CEO of the organization claims to have several years of experience in different fields and even to have lead another NGO in Peru. I am very dubious all that is true. They are from far the all worst manager I have ever had in my life. They were not even able to proper listen to a person what makes really difficult to have a meaningful conversation. And even fewer to organize a project.

If after reading my post you are still thinking about doing volunteer work in Itacare with ETIV think it twice. If you want to visit Itacare just do it as a tourist and if you want to do some good, look for an organisation that it is worth it, if not you will end up wasting your time and money like I did.