Going to Peru with this organization harmed more people than we helped.

My family of five traveled to Lima Peru with Global Volunteers in the summer of 2018. One reason we chose this organization are the promises they make about ongoing programs in the host country and collaboration with local volunteers. This made me feel this organization was interested in sustainable long term progress and not short term feel good voluntourism. Boy were we wrong. Early on, we began to have doubts as to how we were going to help. As the week progressed it became clear that there were no ongoing community programs that Global Volunteers was involved with. Luckily we had a fluent Spanish speaking person on our team so we learned that the local high school we were supposed to be working at hadn't even heard of our coordinator let alone Global Volunteers. Bottom line is that the organization had a lot of problems that they were aware of and didn't try to fix them. Instead, they tried to trick us into feeling like we were helping. The four families on the trip all left after one week. We had not previously met but were all united in our feeling of being cheated. When we wrote a detailed account of all the problems, the CEO sent me a letter from a lawyer saying we have waived our right to sue for negligence. That tells you all you need to know. I regularly volunteer with medical organizations abroad and have had wonderful experiences. I highly recommend finding a more reputable organization.