Free and Low-Cost volunteer
work in South America

Volunteer South America.net was established by Steve McElhinney when he was planning to volunteer but frustrated at the lack of information on independent organizations that would accept volunteer help without charging large fees. He didn’t end up volunteering at that time, but so as not to let all his research go to waste, he started Volunteer South America.net.

I think this is an excellent resource for potential volunteers - you’ll find the links divided into “free to participate volunteer programs” “low-cost: you live in and pay for accommodation” and “miscellaneous: other/developing/in Spanish”. There are also several links to different volunteer resources and agencies – and each link leads you directly to the organization. You can find links to the Darwin Foundation in the Galapagos, Amanecer home for street children in Bolivia, and the Chol-Chol Foundation in Chile (which works to improve quality of life in one particular rural community).

A couple other interesting features include the way Steve has included his brief opinion about or impression of many of the organizations - you can see when you hover over the web address. He points out that this is based on feedback received or just his “gut feel” for the program – he also notes that it is of course the opinion of just one person, and suggests the best bet may be to contact past volunteers.

Volunteer South America.net does also help organizations in South America get online: they will create and host a basic web page for organizations which accept overseas volunteers to function as a reference point for interested volunteers as well as simply a means of publicizing the organization.

This is quite a resource and in my opinion one to be bookmarked!