Anthropology & International Development Internship

My ten months at El Terreno has been another deeply enriching and eye-opening experience in my life: one I can definitely call a whole 'chapter'. What stood out most to me was El Terreno’s commitment to working with the local community, rather than for it. It never felt externally driven or detached from the realities on the ground: "what you see, is what you get, and you have to work with that". I had a chance to engage with the local culture, reflect on different dimensions of development work, and grow both professionally and personally. While there are always areas to improve within organisations - particularly around project continuity and intercultural collaboration - I leave with a strong sense of appreciation and insight. El Terreno not only provided me with a valuable internship for my graduation semester, but it also - thanks to the community, Joshua, Karina, the animals, and all the wonderful people I met - turned my time in Ecuador into something much more: a place that felt like home

I had an amazing experience with El Terreno. I participated in their Culture and Anthropology internship and learned more than I could ever have expected. The support from Joshua and Karina throughout the process was outstanding and my experience in a homestay and with the other volunteers and interns was absolutely amazing. I am so blessed to have had this experience and would strongly recommend to anyone else who is considering.

I spent 4 weeks at El Terreno, and loved my time there! I volunteered in the mornings with the manual work at the house (building barbed-wire fences, digging ditches, chopping trees, building a gate), and spent the afternoons doing my internship in the form of research for my bachelors dissertation in anthropology. I loved the community that I became a part of in Atandahua, both with the neighbours as well as with the volunteers that lived with me in casa communal! My time there involved a lot of different activities: cooking classes learning to make tortillas and empenadas with a new local friend, minga’s, class-prepping for the kids in the afternoon, visiting the nearby communities for research, as well as celebrating both the project anniversary and a local lantern festival that I was lucky to have been a part of my time there! (They love celebrating in Ecuador as you’ll come to find in your own time there too!) I spent my free time with the other volunteers, and we would sometimes go into Guanujo to have dinner together, celebrate each others birthdays, watch football matches, danced salsa and whatever other fun activities we came up with doing together. (The volunteer community is really what you make it yourself which is always fun!) And then of course playing with all the dogs that became a part of my time there too! The internship was really flexible which was awesome in my case for collecting research and needing to alter it over time and follow what opportunities would come up! I also got better at Spanish during my time there as I was practicing everyday, and the neighbours were always up for a chat! The project is very versatile, and you are encouraged to come with your own ideas/initiatives!!