As we know the world is getting more competitive day by day; academic education alone won’t bring us success in our professional life. In order to be well-rounded professionals we need social skills such as self-esteem, communication and the ability to make decisions. Most of the time, these are acquired during a life span but they can also be taught. One of LAFF’s goals is to help vulnerable and at-risk youth and children acquire and develop skills and tools that will help them be successful in their lives.

With this in mind and with the help of a local career guidance expert, Eliana, LAFF organized four career guidance workshops for Azul Wasi beneficiaries who are starting to think about their future careers. The objective of this workshop was to provide our beneficiaries with strategies to obtain social skills that will not only assist them in their daily lives, but help them identify potential careers and later, successfully gain employment. The workshops covered the themes of self-esteem, communication, decision-making, and developing a life plan. Through interactive discussions, activities, and videos, the beneficiaries all experienced growth in social skills over the four workshops.

The first workshop focused on self-esteem, which is the value each one perceives to have of themselves, with acceptance of oneself being of vital importance for positive interpersonal relations. Through life we have to deal with interpersonal relations on a daily basis therefore a strong, positive self-esteem is of great value. Through a series of exercises our beneficiaries worked on their self-esteem, exploring their own qualities to reinforce a positive image of themselves as well as sharing strengths they saw in each other.

Communication was the subject for the second session and assertive communication was emphasized as a tool to build healthy relationships with others. The Dorland Medical Dictionary defines assertiveness as:

a form of behavior characterized by a confident declaration or affirmation of a statement without need of proof; this affirms the person’s rights or point of view without either aggressively threatening the rights of another (assuming a position of dominance) or submissively permitting another to ignore or deny one’s rights or point of view.

With this, we can see how positive self-esteem will be best reflected in assertive communication, linking the first two sessions together.

The third session was about decision-making. Eliana used the previous sessions to introduce the theme and helped the beneficiaries reflect on the process towards making a good decision. She was very clear about the fact that the decision making process doesn’t solely depend on our personal preferences but that we have to take into consideration different factors such as: our economic means, family, the environment we live in, and society, amongst others. Once we consider all the factors and assess our potential, we are better able to make good decisions.

The last session was designed for the beneficiaries to develop a life plan . They had to recall what they had learned in the previous sessions, beginning with a process of decision making to assess their personal capacities and external factors and to develop a life plan: What do I want to become? Where do I see myself in five years? In this way, the workshops linked together to help the beneficiaries identify future plans, and be more confident in achieving their goals.

At the end of the last session one of the beneficiaries expressed his gratitude towards LAFF and said that he would cherish the things he had learned and apply them in his daily life.

Attending these sessions also made me think about my own life plan: despite not knowing where I will be in five years, I have a supportive family, a high quality education, and was fortunate to grow up in a healthy environment. Knowing that many of LAFF’s beneficiaries have not had the same opportunities as I helped me to realize how important these sessions are. Helping our beneficiaries to improve their self-esteem, develop their communication skills, make better decisions, and plan for the future will help give them tools they need to be successful in life.

Arianna Valentini, April 2013

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Join us for Taste PERU – our national fundraising dinner party – and spend an evening with your friends sharing a delicious home-cooked Peruvian menu while raising awareness of vulnerable children.

TASTE PERU

Date:  From 5 – 7th  July 2013

Location: Your house (or wherever suits you!)

Perfect for people who love to explore different recipes, taste different types of food, spend good time with friends and want to support LAFF’s projects.

It’s easy! Just follow our 5 steps:

1. Register today to receive your FREE Taste PERU fundraising pack by emailing to events.laff@gmail.com

2. Choose one set menu from our easy-to-prepare LAFF Taste PERU recipes for your friends.

3. Cook and share your delicious meal with friends and ask for their donations for LAFF.

4. Share LAFF’s work with your friends by watching a short film about the vulnerable children we support.

5. You raised money? Excelente! Make your donation to LAFF’s JustGiving Page – Taste PERU. Your donations will help us reach even more vulnerable children and young people in Peru.

You can also upload a short 2-minute video clip to tell us about your Peruvian dinner party, what you did to raise funds and why you chose to support us. It’s easy to do on your computer or smartphone – simply upload to Youtube and email us the link. Your video will be screened on 12^th July at our main fundraising event, LAFFiesta.

All participants of Taste PERU will also have a chance to win a fantastic prize for their fundraising dinner party, kindly donated by our sponsors.

Ready to cook?

LAFF provides you with a downloadable resource pack (see below) including fundraising ideas, Peruvian recipes and a quiz game. The other resources will be made available for you shortly. If you need any extra information about the event please contact Alessandra, Community Fundraising Officer, on 07576871609 or email events.laff@gmail.com.

Please download the Taste PERU fundraising pack

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Join us for an incredible night of fun and fundraising as we host our first ever mini Latin festival in London! 

Date: July 12th 2013

Time: 6pm – 11pm

Place: Dalston Eastern Curve Garden, London,13 Dalston Lane, London, E8 3DF

Tickets: £3 Early Bird tickets available online now LAFFiesta tickets; or £5 on the door

Our first LAFFiesta will be held in Dalston Eastern Curve Garden - a secret location in East London, Dalston. The venue is a hidden oasis in the heart of Dalston, a perfect place to enjoy a summer evening in the lush gardens surrounded by beautiful plants and trees (and part covered for protection from any potential rain!)

A night of Latin-themed entertainment awaits you – including food, drinks, live music and a panel discussion with some of our fundraising team where you can hear directly about our organisation and projects in Peru. The event will conclude with a raffle and an auction to raise further funds and awareness of street children.

You can also get your hands on some fantastic prizes from the likes of BlankboxCoffee, Lima Peruvian Restaurant, Buen Ayre Argentinean Restaurant, Rio cinema, BoroughWines, FabCooking – Premium Cookery Class, Just Trade voucher and Shzen spa – more prizes to be announced soon. Raffle tickets can be purchased at any time through our JustGiving Page.

Live in London and want to promote this fab event? Download this LAFFiesta poster, print and spread the word! And to see photos of the stunning venue and read about all the hard work happening behind the scenes, click through to our Vodafone World of Difference sponsored volunteer  Alessandra’s blog.

We are currently looking for more volunteers and sponsors to ensure the success of this new event. If you would like to discuss how you can support LAFFiesta and/or need some extra information, please contact Alessandra, Community Fundraising Officer, at events.laff@gmail.com

Thanks to the following supporters of our first LAFFiesta – more to come!

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One of the greatest challenges that all non-governmental organizations (NGOs) face is knowing whether or not the work they are undertaking is having a positive impact on beneficiaries over both the short- and long-term. After all, an immense amount of resources often go into a project or programme: staff, money, equipment, etc. and supporters of NGOs want to know how their money and in-kind donations are being used. In international development work, resources tend to be scarce, the problems huge, and the stakes are big given that the lives of many people are trying to be enhanced.

This is where monitoring and evaluation (M&E) comes into play.  Governments such as those in the United Kingdom, United States of America, and Canada as well as international organizations like the United Nations have been actively using M&E to assess the impact of their work both domestically and internationally. Increasingly, more NGOs working in international development are undertaking M&E activities to not only assess impact, but to also help with strategic planning and the management of activities.

But what do we mean when we say “monitoring and evaluation?” The Organization for Economic and Cooperative Development (OECD) defines evaluation as the following:

The systematic and objective assessment of an on-going or completed project, programme or policy, its design, implementation and results. The aim is to determine the relevance and fulfillment of objectives, development efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability. An evaluation should provide information that is credible and useful, enabling the incorporation of lessons learned into the decision-making process of both recipients and donors.

Evaluation also refers to the process of determining the worth or significance of an activity, policy or program.

Monitoring, meanwhile, is defined by the OECD as:

A continuing function that uses systematic collection of data on specified indicators to provide management and the main stakeholders of an ongoing development intervention with indications of the extent of progress and achievement of objectives and progress in the use of allocated funds.

What this all means, basically, is that NGOs with a M&E framework set out to collect, in a systematic manner, evidence that will tell them how well their interventions are doing, where there are challenges, if the activities are having the desired impact, and how they can improve their work. NGOs can then use this information for the strategic planning of future activities, adapt current activities to have a greater impact, or even to cancel interventions that may not be achieving results or may even be having a negative impact on beneficiaries. The lessons learned through M&E can help to improve the organizaton’s work, and, in turn, enable the NGO to have a greater positive impact in the lives of the beneficiaries. It also means that NGOs will be able to share more success stories with supporters that are based on facts.

LAFF is currently undertaking steps to set up an M&E framework that will help the organization to assess the impact of it’s work over an extended period of time. We are involving all volunteers and partners in the development of the framework, ensuring that LAFF continues to work in a participatory manner in addition to ensuring their support as we begin to collect data. By making this commitment to undertaking M&E activities, LAFF is becoming more transparent, more accountable, and more willing to identify failures in addition to celebrating successes. In doing so, the organization will become stronger, the support we provide to our local partners will be enhanced, and – perhaps the best part – we will have an even greater positive impact on the lives of the children and young people we work with here in Peru.

Danielle Hoegy, April 2013

If you have a background in monitoring and evaluation and are interested in volunteering with LAFF in Cusco, we are currently recruiting! Check out our Volunteer page for more detailed information about the position and how to apply.

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A few weeks ago, as part of our Vocational Training programme, LAFF’s beneficiaries took part in career guidance workshops at UNSAAC (Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco) which involved local volunteers giving them advice on how to write CVs and conduct themselves in job interviews. I sat in and observed the workshop delivered to girls from our partner organisation, Casa Mantay, a home for young mothers and their babies, and was so impressed and inspired by how well the girls engaged with the advice they were being given.

What stuck in my mind about this day was the fact that all three volunteers delivering the workshop were confident, clearly accomplished (two were at university, one had gone straight into the working world) young women from Cusco, and this really seemed to strike a chord with the beneficiaries. It is without a doubt more difficult for women to access opportunities here, and the Casa Mantay girls are already in vulnerable positions having taken on the responsibility of motherhood as a result of sexual abuse. It was clear that rather than just being told how they could improve their future prospects, the beneficiaries appreciated the examples that these three volunteers were setting and felt empowered by directly witnessing their success, which was moving to see.

Friday 8^th March is International Woman’s Day so it seems appropriate to focus on the importance of strong female role models, especially in a society that may theoretically promote gender equality but often doesn’t practice what it preaches. It is perhaps unsurprising that since its inception 12 years ago, Casa Mantay has been directed and managed by a clear example of one of these women; Raquel Garcia. By setting up the home, Raquel has offered scores of abandoned teenage mothers support that they’ve been unable to find elsewhere; providing food, shelter, emotional and psychological therapy and assisting girls with their court proceedings, helping to denounce their aggressors. Right now this is especially relevant, given that the UN named the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day, “A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women.”

The story of Raquel’s plight to help teenage mothers in Cusco was recently picked up by a local newspaper in her native La Palma, to whom she admitted that although she misses her family and friends, and that an average day could bring either tears or laughter, Casa Mantay is her “place in the world”. I for one seriously admire Raquel’s dedication to giving young girls the opportunities to overcome their pasts, and through this she’s been setting an amazing example of advocating women’s rights in Peru.

I’ve met many inspirational women throughout my time here, but when I think of strong female role models in the specific context of Cusco, my mind immediately turns to one of LAFF’s partner NGOs, GIrlSportWorks, an organisation that aims to tackle the gender inequalities inherent in Peruvian culture. Their objective is to use physical education to empower girls at schools in and around Cusco, meanwhile teaching them about leadership, teamwork, self-confidence and healthy living. This is all carried out through the hard work of project managers such as current GSW representative Kelly Jacobs. Kelly’s commitment to the cause is so evident and it’s always amazing to see GirlSportWorks’ beneficiaries enjoying playing sports that are traditionally reserved for males in Peru. I once walked passed the Casa Mantay girls taking part in their weekly session with GirlSportWorks on the sports court outside the home and remember noticing how men would slow down as they walked past, both curious and impressed at these teenage girls playing football. It’s often at this grassroots level that the most impact can be made in regards to gender perceptions and stereotypes, which is why it’s so encouraging that young girls have role models like Kelly to look up to.

Though unintentionally, the LAFF team has always been female-dominated. The trustees are all female, and since the volunteer programme launched in 2012 it has been exclusively girls and women who have taken on positions with the organisation here in Peru. This has all been under the direction of current International Partnerships Manager, Maria Paula Jaramillo, whose ample experience in development at such a young age and relentless dedication to her work has been motivation for all of us volunteers to work just as hard. I will undoubtedly leave Cusco feeling more self-assured and confident in working not just in International Development, but any field, having been guided and surrounded by inspirational, empowered women.

At the heart of this is Sarah Oakes, who founded LAFF in 2007 and been tirelessly directing the organisation in her free time, on a voluntary basis, ever since. Sarah first started working in Latin America in 2003 and felt compelled to continue helping vulnerable children in Peru overcome their harsh realities. Over the past months I have seen first hand how much LAFF’s work has benefitted its partner organisations and supported them in becoming sustainable and independent. Since this has all flourished from an idea Sarah had 6 years ago, she is undoubtedly a woman who deserves some recognition and I personally find her absolute determination to give marginalised kids the best possible start in life, even whilst she’s living in the UK and training to become a teacher, enormously empowering.

International Women’s Day is not just addressing a social issue – offering opportunities to girls can have a significant impact on economic growth. A 2011 paper by the World Bank concluded that “marginal investments in girls can have a substantial impact on GDP growth and well-being. If girls just completed one higher level of education, the total value of productivity generated over the work life of those girls is equivalent to nearly one year’s GDP (Burundi).”

The advice of the official International Woman’s Day website is to “Make a difference, think globally and act locally. Make everyday International Women’s Day. Do your bit to ensure that the future for girls is bright, equal, safe and rewarding.” Women like Raquel, Kelly, Maria Paula and Sarah are doing this, and as an organisation, LAFF are following the same mantra by supporting Casa Mantay, as well as other partners such as Sacred Valley Project (a boarding house for Andean girls who live hours away from the nearest schools) in offering marginalised and disadvantaged girls an alternative path for the future, and the opportunity to grow into strong, self-assured young women who may even be role models themselves one day.

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When it comes to functioning sustainably and supporting its partners to do the same thing, one of LAFF’s main areas of focus is Cost Reduction. Though perhaps self-explanatory, the definition of cost reduction according to BOND (the UK membership body for NGOs working in international development) is the “astute financial management aimed at reducing core costs to an acceptable minimum”. In the specific case of NGOs, this normally revolves around reducing programme administration costs and achieving as much as possible without increasing how much is spent.

LAFF follows these principles so that the optimum amount of its incoming funds reaches the projects, and encourages its partner organisations to take a similar approach in order to be financially sustainable and independent. Of course, the key is to reduce costs without also reducing the quality of support that is provided to our beneficiaries.

Over the last few years we’ve been helping our partner organisation, Azul Wasi, a home for boys just outside of Cusco, to cut its costs in the long term through growing its own vegetables. In theory, the idea is simple –Azul Wasi run a functional greenhouse in which the kids  plant and cultivate their own produce, and the home  saves on their weekly food expenditure and in the long term, the nutrition of the boys and girls is improved.  Further down the road also it is hoped that there is also an opportunity for income-generation, if the organisation is able to sell some of their produce, or the possibility of hiring one of the boys to maintain the greenhouse once they come of age and are looking for work.

In order to implement effective cost reduction strategies, however, the key is to be absolutely certain of saving money in the long run. Though  the greenhouse project at Azul Wasi has been running for years, the conditions and soil quality in its current location are hindering production and equally, despite the kids attending technical workshops in compost training, without their ongoing active engagement and participation, the greenhouse is less effective. To combat these issues, LAFF has  employed an agricultural expert to draw up a productivity projection in the form of a Cost Benefit Analysis, to help both Azul Wasi and LAFF analyse and ensure that investing money in re-locating the greenhouse will impact productivity and subsequently reduce food costs for the home, contributing to its long-term sustainability. The active participation of Azul Wasi’s director is vital, as well as the beneficiaries themselves, to ensure that once the greenhouse is installed, it is well maintained and exploited to its full potential.

Even then, there is a question of prioritising needs, and we could end up concluding that the saving in food costs would not be worth the time the kids would have to invest in the upkeep of the green house.

LAFF are also looking to partner with with another NGO that assists communities to set up sustainable energy systems. Installing solar panels and wind turbines at our partner organisations sites will help towards environmental and financial sustainability  given that green energy is not only cleaner but also often cheaper than grid electricity. Again, however, it is completely necessary to do our research and use the information we have about our partners’ current energy usage and the wind/solar potential of each location to calculate whether this would actually be a feasible cost reduction project.

The point is that cost reduction initiatives can be implemented in many shapes and forms – for LAFF, this means not having an office, and running a volunteer programme to minimise the amount spent on staff salaries. But often decreasing costs and increasing sustainability is not as simple as it seems and depends on several external factors, for example, cultural and ideological concerns could prevent our partners from wanting to swap their existing energy source for the solar or wind systems mentioned before.

When it comes to working with partners, rather than making decisions on their behalf about projects in areas such as cost reduction, it is crucial to take a participatory approach, which combined with expert knowledge and detailed research, can allow LAFF and our partners to make the right decisions and ensure that the organisations we work with have all the tools necessary to progress towards a more sustainable and independent future.

Maria Cunningham, February 2013

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Being a LAFF staff member or volunteer requires a lot of independent work and generally the team will get together once a week at our Monday morning meeting, to discuss the week’s events and update each other on the progress made in our individual components. In January 2013 with the arrival of Danielle, our first Monitoring and Evaluation advisor, we decided to do something a bit different.

While some of us have been in Cusco for over 6 months, we realised that we had never formally discussed as a group the specificities of working in Peru. Though we are familiar with the backgrounds of our beneficiaries and have an understanding of the issues that can affect marginalised young people, we wanted to explore the contextual situation in more depth and compile some research, facts and figures for the team to share and consider. So each volunteer chose a topic that particularly interested them and went away to prepare a 30-minute presentation that would hopefully provide some food-for-thought for everyone in attendance.

Sarah, for example, chose to look at how we should define our beneficiaries and the varying definitions for terms such as vulnerable children, at-risk youth and orphans. She explained how major organisations such as the UN distinguish between street-living and street-working children and this provoked further discussion on LAFF’s beneficiaries. In Cusco, socioeconomic reasons such as lack of employment or violence in the home cause children to move from the Andean country into the city to work, which can result in their homelessness. We’ve all seen young children selling souvenirs or offering to shine people’s shoes around the main square of Cusco, and LAFF helps its partners such as Azul Wasi, a home for marginalised and orphaned boys, to provide a better future for youth from high-risk backgrounds such as this. By offering them opportunities such as an education, vocational training schemes and better facilities such as well-equipped libraries, we hope to help these kids break their poverty cycle and look forward to a better future.

For my independent research I wanted to find out more about Peru’s recent political history and how this affected the everyday lives of Peruvians, specifically LAFF’s beneficiaries. I ended up focusing on something that seemed to be a recurring theme throughout Peru’s modern history – the racial and cultural divide between the country’s urban and rural populations. Although 45% of Peruvians are of Indian or indigenous descent, and this figure is much higher in Cusco, the society here has always tended to discriminate against native populations, who are statistically more likely to be trapped in poverty with a lack of opportunities, particularly for those whose mother tongue is Quechua rather than Spanish. Again, this is something that is very relevant to LAFF’s beneficiaries at Sacred Valley Project, who live in indigenous communities throughout the Andes, hours away from the nearest schools. SVP provides accommodation and supplementary education to girls during the week so they can attend school, offering opportunities to these girls in spite of their rural upbringing – an example of how LAFF and its partners are working to change things, aiming to give kids a head start in life and help them fight stigma, marginalisation and language difficulties.

Before coming to live in Cusco, Claire had done her own research into the situation with women in Peru. As someone who is passionate about gender equality and women’s rights she decided to share some of her findings with us through her presentation. This is a particularly important issue for LAFF, especially for the volunteers working closely with our partner, Casa Mantay, a home for teenage mothers and their babies. While legally, Peruvian women are entitled to equality and certain rights, we have seen first-hand how girls can be let down by the system and abandoned by their families and society for assuming pregnancies which are a result of rape and abuse. Casa Mantay gives the beneficiaries psychological and emotional support which they cannot access elsewhere, and sets an example within society by assisting the girls with their court proceedings and helping to denounce their aggressors. Unfortunately, Claire’s statistics reinforced stories we’d already heard about sexual and physical assault against women and girls being very common in Peru. With LAFF supporting beneficiaries in such vulnerable states, we discussed how it is important to realise the inherent differences in attitudes towards sex and gender that one can encounter when working on the ground. Unfortunately we cannot change how people think overnight, but by working with organisations such as Casa Mantay we can give young girls the opportunities to overcome their pasts and have just as much future potential as their male counterparts.

After the presentation session we agreed how useful it was to present topics of interest to each other and consolidate these facts in our mind. I for one definitely feel that discussing these issues contributed to my own understanding of the context of working in Peru and reminded me of the harsh socioeconomic realities of LAFF’s beneficiaries. It goes without saying that it is absolutely crucial to know your context when working in International Development and for this very reason LAFF works with partner organisations, with the belief that vulnerable and marginalised children such as our beneficiaries are best understood by those closest to them. We realise that local projects and organisations in Peru are most familiar with the needs of local children and can identify the help required by LAFF, and now our staff and volunteers working closely with these organisations can say with certainty that we have made the same effort to appreciate the specific challenges faced by the kids that we support.

Maria Cunningham, February 2013

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In the world of development, the term ‘voluntourism’ is sometimes loaded with negative connotations. Broadly, it describes the tendency within the tourist industry for companies to sell volunteer packages that offer individuals (normally young people or gap-year students) the opportunity to travel to a developing country and ‘do their part’ in helping those less fortunate than themselves. The agencies that organise these trips often demand hefty fees and combine the volunteer experience with a tour or a trek – here in Cusco the standard voluntourism experience consists of one or two weeks at a local project followed by a trek to Machu Picchu. Many people question whether these agencies are motivated by helping global communities, or just maximising their own profit.

Search ‘volunteering Peru’ online and you’ll find dozens of pages listing the websites of companies offering packages like those described above. But why has volunteer tourism become such a popular and lucrative market? Many companies claim that volunteering looks great on a CV, demonstrating compassion and global awareness. And no doubt for young people entering today’s job market, anything that can boost one’s employability prospects is an attractive possibility. There’s also the theory that volunteers are essentially taking part in “guilt-offsetting programmes” that allow individuals from more advantageous backgrounds to feel like “a saviour” (Daniella Papi) by working with poor and at-risk populations. JB Mackinson agrees, arguing in the article ‘The Dark Side of Volunteer Tourism’ that “many volunteer projects serve the egos of tourists more effectively than they serve the locals”.

We can’t of course assume that volunteer tourists, or even the companies that sell to them, don’t have good intentions. The fact that any individual would give up time, effort and money for a cause in itself demonstrates a desire to help. The fundamental issue is, however, that volunteering projects frequently make no long-term difference to local communities, or worse, they do more harm than good. For example, in an area with high unemployment rates, it can be unsustainable for a volunteer to travel half way across the world to carry out a job that a local person could be paid to do, such as building work. And when the volunteering involves children, the risks are even higher. A few years ago, a UNICEF report showed that ¾ of children in Cambodian orphanages have one or both parents, and that in fact the constant stream of visiting volunteers paying for “the privilege of hugging/playing/otherwise interacting with local children” (Richard Stupart) was creating a market for orphans, and ‘Orphanage-pimps’ who would pay local parents to rent their children to take part in this charade.

LAFF’s partner organisations support at-risk and vulnerable children here in Peru, some of whom are genuine orphans, have worked on the streets, or are young mothers who have been abused and rejected by their families. Coming from such backgrounds, many of our beneficiaries are understandably affected and need to be treated with particular sensitivity, so it may not always be sensible for the organisations to welcome continual cohorts of volunteer groups that may not have any experience with at-risk youth, especially when what these children often need is a sense of consistency and stability. Often, the problem is that volunteering is publicised and sold to anyone, regardless of age, knowledge or experience, when it is not manpower that the organisations are most in need of, but trained and capable volunteers.

Because volunteering can be beneficial, and can make a difference. The key is knowing how it can be made more sustainable, empowering and give positive results. For starters, in many contexts it’s vital that the volunteers speak the local language. Here in Cusco, some of our child beneficiaries grew up speaking only Quechua and they themselves are still getting to grips with speaking Spanish. This makes the efforts of non- Spanish speaking volunteers sent to play with them, or even teach them English, pretty much futile. Secondly, any volunteer who is paying for a placement abroad should demand transparency as to where their money really goes. Agencies can always claim the volunteer fees go to supporting the local project but in many cases it is not clear how much is pocketed by the middleman.

Here at LAFF, we launched our volunteer programme in 2012, and it is set apart from others in many ways. Each volunteer undertakes an application and interview process, just like with a paid position, as well as a CRB check, and we recruit individuals with specific skills that we are sure will be of use to us and our partners in the long term. For maximum efficiency the volunteers are requested to work for a minimum of 3 months here on the ground in Cusco, which also means they get to know and interact with the kids on a consistent basis, rather than playing games with them for a week before leaving for good. Crucially, LAFF volunteers work primarily to build the capacity of the local staff, always keeping in mind the ultimate goal of independence, rather than dependence.

LAFF have been trying to set a different standard in the world of volunteering, and are proud to say that recently we’ve also been working with university students here in Cusco. These local volunteers are giving up their time to develop and deliver training workshops on career guidance and life skills to our beneficiaries, proving that NGOs don’t always have to recruit tourists or expats when there are in-country volunteers with the same capacity and capability.

Even so, when well managed and responding to a specific pre-identified need, overseas volunteers do have the potential to be of genuine assistance. As testament to this, one of LAFF’s partner organisations, Sacred Valley Project, will be employing student groups from the UK this summer for 1-month construction projects suitable for unskilled labourers. Crucially, the expectation is that these groups will have limited contact with the beneficiaries, as the priority is their education, not contact with volunteers.

Sarah Oakes, founder of LAFF, believes that “volunteering can be a hugely rewarding experience for those who do it. Having looked after volunteer groups in Peru for 3 years and been a skilled volunteer with VSO myself, I know from personal experience how life changing it can be, as well as the potential impact volunteering can have on local communities. However it is worth bearing in mind that this impact has the potential to be highly beneficial or extremely detrimental, damaging even, for intended beneficiaries.”

Sarah’s advice for anyone considering donating time and energy to help overseas is to “research carefully and find out what kind of impact your presence is likely to have. Where possible, learn the language, come with skills as well as energy, and plan to spend several months helping on one place – not only with this provide stability and increase your positive impact, you’ll get so much more out of the experience yourself this way.”

Maria Cunningham, January 2013

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Follow the link below to check out LAFF’s 2011-2012 Annual Report and read about all our news from the field, including the new volunteer team, our advocacy work with the Consortium for Street Children, how the children are getting on with their education, and how our sustainability initiatives are changing things for the better for children’s organisations in Peru.

http://www.issuu.com/laffcharity/docs/laffannualreport2011-12  

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International Partnerships Manager (Peru)

Do you have the skills and experience to manage projects and partners in a challenging but rewarding role overseas? Do you speak fluent English and Spanish? Do you have experience working with volunteers and working in International Development, or similar transferable skills and experience? If so, we want to hear from you.

The role

You’ll be working directly with our partners, beneficiaries and volunteers in Cusco to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate and communicate progress on a range of education and sustainability projects.

Crucially, you’ll help us work towards a vocational training programme for marginalised young people, supported by social enterprise, and you’ll also be using your own skills to build capacity at our partner organisations helping them to become stronger, more independent organisations able to support even more marginalised young people.

Based in Cusco, Peru, you’ll be working closely with partners, managing our team of long-term volunteers and be the lynch-pin of our overseas operations, supported by a remote internationally-located team.

The person

If you’re the dynamic self-starter we’re looking for – with fluent Spanish and English and experience working in International Development, project management and working with volunteers (or similar relevant experience in a related field if the skills and experiences are transferable), please apply today!

Closing date for applications: 23.59 (GMT) on Tuesday 17th February 2013.

Interview dates: w/c Mon 25th February 2013.

Expected start date: Beginning of April 2013

For more information please download our Application Pack and Equal Opportunities forms from our jobs page (www.laffcharity.org.uk/about/jobs) before applying with a CV and covering letter telling us why you would be perfect for the position. Looking forward to hearing from you!

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