Children's Centre in San José

Name: Children's Centre in San José
Start: 2024-04-30
End: 2026-12-31
Location: San José, Costa Rica

Code: b677b63aa7a047a198f4a2cab957db6f Copied

Costa Rica Education Children Social work Education Children +2 Permanent

About the project

📝 Detailed information

🏢 About the local organisation

El Centro Integral Infantil Manos Amigas is an Institution which takes care of 30 children and their families from the very poor areas of San José. This center aims to cover the three fundamental areas of education, health, nutrition and psychological health, and which are essential for the integral development of any human being. They give them food and care as well; Kid's ages range from 0 to 6 years old. They also organize night patrols to give food to homeless people in San José.

💼 What the programme involves

Possible tasks for the volunteer
- Assisting the Staff members with the needs of integral management of the children
- Development of didactic and educational materials (handcrafts) for the children together with the teachers in charge
- Supporting activities related to special dates and celebrations in the center
Cleaning and disinfection of materials, equipment and furnitures after the regular activities of the center
- Assisting the children when eating, helping them to eat and cleaning them once they finish eating
- Assisting in the kitchen, mainly in cleaning and maintenance, but not cooking as the center has a hired service in charge of the daily food
- If the volunteer has specific skills that can be used for the center, volunteers can talk (good communication) to the staff and ask for permission in order to see if they can create activities for the placement such as: Games, songs, etc.
- Foreign language classes (e.g. English lessons)
- Workshops (music, art, etc.)
- When volunteers have a high level of Spanish, they can be requested to support administrative works.

🏠 Accommodation on site

Hosting situation provided by Local Family. The volunteer will be hosted in a family relatively close to the project. The majority of families are middle class. The volunteer will, in most cases, have his/her own room and a shared bathroom (with the family and sometimes with another volunteer). Meals will be provided by the host families and/or by the project (3 meals a day). The volunteer might bring the lunch with him/her to the project. All families are different, and you should be able to adapt to a certain degree to your host family.

⚠️ Requirements

Required skills and interests of the volunteer
- Patience, sensitive and tolerance
- Creativity and interest in social work and enjoy working for children
- The volunteer should enjoy working with people and foster good human relations
- Proactivity is a must
- Volunteer must be ready to work independently even when the coordinator is not present.
- Honest, responsible, punctual, positive person.
- Leadership Skills.
- Good attitude.
- Open to flexibility of schedules
- Ready and available to play games with the children.
- Use of cell phone is prohibited in working hours, except in breaks and for emergency situation
- If there is a medical condition, volunteers need to inform and send the needed certification from doctors or similar.

🤝 Meeting point

The volunteer will be collected at the airport in San José.

ℹ️ Additional information

The Extra Fee indicated covers a period of 4 WEEKS, and includes

- Transfer from the airport to the host family
- Orientation day, a day in which we give a cultural introduction to Costa Rica, safty and transportation recommendations, directions to the project and a tour of San Jose with lunch included
- Accomodation and meals in the host family

The program has flexible dates depending on the availability of the project, with flexibility from 4 weeks to 5 month, but this includes an additional fee to the indicated fee.

Manos Amigas is a permanent projects, so they receive volunteers all year long. They have a capacity of around 1-2 volunteers per week and there are no limitations in the number of female or male volunteers, but yes, we recommend volunteers to be adults (+18).

Interested in this project? Create your account and apply online.