What inspired you to work for Vive Peru?
After traveling to Peru in 2006 during a summer experience through the University of Notre Dame, I fell in love with Latin America and Peruvian culture. After graduation, I moved to Peru and began working teaching English and playing in the local symphony orchestra, but in my heart I really longed to do non-profit work.
In 2011, we took a risk and launched Vive Peru with a goal to impact the hearts and minds of young people from the United States while making a positive impact on the community in Northern Peru. I was thrilled to be able to finally be working doing what I loved, which was teaching more foreigners about life in Peru while giving back to the community at the same time.
Our team were local and foreign volunteers, staff, and community members. This is us after our Christmas event.
Describe a typical day at work.
My days at Vive Peru differ throughout the year. As we are a small organization, I do a little bit of everything: volunteer recruitment, administrative work, meeting with community liaisons, putting on medical campaigns, creating social media posts, leading orientations, and teaching volunteers how to get around Trujillo.
I split my time between the United States and Peru. While in the U.S., I reach out to program alumni and university partners to continue to grow the program. While in Peru, I help keep the program running, problem solve, take care of administrative duties to keep the organization running and work with my team to improve our impact in the community and the quality of our volunteer programs. My days are split between the U.S. and Peru as well as between work on the computer and in the field.
What is your favorite part of your job?
My favorite part of my job is watching how program participants discover the power of cultural immersion while living in Peru and participating in the program. I believe the best way to change the world is for people to learn to understand the perspective of people who are different from them. One of the best ways to do that is through an immersion program abroad like Vive Peru.
It's incredible to see them struggle with what they love about Peru and what they don't love about Peru. It’s interesting to see them begin to question why we do things the way we do them in the U.S. or where they grew up, especially if it's their first time abroad. It's one of the biggest reasons I do what I do.
A photo at a volunteer project on my first trip to Peru in 2006 where I worked as a music teacher in a shantytown outside of Lima.
What are some current projects you are working on?
We're currently working on launching a new program in Peru that's a weeklong Yoga and Surf Camp in Huanchaco, Peru. Program participants will participate in yoga sessions in the morning and surf lessons in the afternoons. I'm really excited to launch a program that allows participants to relax and enjoy Peru while supporting our community outreach programs in Peru benefiting the health of children and families in Northern Peru.
What advice would you tell your pre-travel self?
It's actually the same advice we tell our volunteers before they travel to Peru, to expect the unexpected and be flexible.
Try to take advantage of every opportunity, even if it's not what was originally planned. It takes awhile to adapt to these ideas, but the more you do, the more you'll enjoy your experience!
Why should someone choose Vive Peru over competitors?
Vive Peru is a locally based organization that has a real impact on the local community. Our staff works with each of our program participants to personalize their program according to their interests and level of Spanish. Our work in the community is sustainable and has long-term results, so the impact of your work continues long after you're gone!
What hopes do you have for the future for Vive Peru?
We hope to continue to grow and provide more quality immersion programs in Peru where participants are able to have a quality experience while contributing to projects that are making a real difference in Peruvian communities. We hope that our alumni network continues to grow to help us diversify our funding sources as well as continue to build a stronger network of community partners, both in Peru and abroad.
What is Vive Peru's mission and how do you continue to work toward it?
Our mission is to promote understanding of Latin American culture and to provide support to communities in need in Peru. We continue to promote understanding of Peruvian culture primarily through our immersive volunteer programs in Peru. We work to provide support to communities in Peru through various community outreach projects but primarily through our community intervention project to promote healthy families and eradicate anemia and parasites in children under 5 in Trujillo, Peru. We accomplish this through partnerships with local governments, universities, and of course the support of our network of volunteers and donors abroad.
Welcoming a summer volunteer group to Trujillo in 2019 with a luncheon and typical Peruvian dances.
What do you hope participants take away from your programs?
I hope that volunteers reflect on their own culture and what ideals make them who they are. Also, I hope they begin to reflect on what changes they could make to their own habits or the systems in their own countries to make them better. I hope they can begin to reimagine the world, with a starting point of reflecting on the differences between their country and Peru and begin to build a world that is more connected and more understanding.
How do you help support participants?
Our staff supports volunteers from the time they are accepted until they return home from Peru by providing quality orientation details and 24/7 support while they are in Peru. We also begin all of our programs with a comprehensive program and cultural orientation.
Volunteers receive support from our staff, local university students who work together with our program, as well as their host families. We are there to help them plan trips, accompany them to buy things they might not know where to find in town, learn how to take buses and support in case of sickness or emergencies.
Why is it important for people to travel abroad and experience new cultures?
There is nothing that opens your mind more and helps you reflect on your beliefs than traveling abroad. Not only does it help you understand people from other cultures but it also helps you reflect on the systems you grew up with. For example, many of our volunteers are interested in the health professions, and it is very interesting for them to experience a health system so different from their own (nationalized healthcare, among other differences) in order to really evaluate the positives and negatives of the type of system they have in their own country.
What does meaningful travel mean to you?
Meaningful travel means two things. First, traveling in a way that you interact with the community and try to learn about the community's culture and heritage. Second, contributing to the community which you visit in a positive way. This can be as simple as being respectful of the community and supporting local businesses and as complex as staying long-term and working as a volunteer with a community development project.
Our team in Huanchaco, Peru getting ready to relaunch our programs post-COVID.
What qualities in program & host community relations are important to you? (And Vive Peru?)
It's important for the organization to listen to the community first. The organization or program might have a proposal, but it is essential to the success of the project and the community's growth that the program and organization listen to the community as well. This helps to ensure that the program will have a positive, long-term impact.
There have been a number of poorly executed programs in Peru that I have seen where this communication did not happen, resulting in, for example, school buildings that have been left empty, health center buildings that are not in use and new stoves/ovens that have been abandoned because the community did not see the value in using them. It is only by working together with the community and its leaders that a successful project can work towards solutions that are long-term, meaningful and impactful for the community.
