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Step I: Finding the right program
Shine a light collaborates with over 300 organizations that help children find options other than the street. This diversity means that there will certainly be a program that matches your interests and your skills, but it's also intimidating. Shine a light has created several tools to help you match yourself with the programs that want your help.
- Organizational Needs: This page will allow you to match your skills to the needs of programs for street children. Some programs need doctors, others need dance teachers, football coaches, and wilderness guides. Scroll down through the page to find programs that need your skills.
- Geographical List: If you want to be in a specific city or country, this list will help you to find the programs that serve street children there. Please be aware that not all of these programs choose to work with volunteers; if the essay is not explicit, write to ask.
- Organizational Expertise: This list, in Spanish, organizes programs by their strengths. Here, you can find which are the best programs in street education; who best uses dance or the visual arts; who does the best work with families. Again, note that not all of these programs accept volunteers.
By clicking on the links from these pages, you'll find essays about each program, the services they provide for street children, and what they require from volunteers. When available, we also provide a link to the organization's website and their electronic and physical addresses.
Recently, many volunteers have also been able to find out more about programs through social networking sites. You can find out more about this resource here.
If you are not locked in to a specific country, several programs depend on volunteers to provide services, and we encourage you give special consideration to working for these organizations.
You should keep several things in mind as you choose a program.
- Don't choose just one organization that interests you -- if you select three or four, plans will certainly work out with at least one.
- Many organizations expect that volunteers commit to at least three months of work. It takes a lot of work to train a volunteer, to get to know the children, and to understand the models under which the programs work.
- Remember that these organizations will put time, energy, money, and effort into training you.
- Read the essays on the organizations carefully -- in addition to details on the services they provide, the tone of the essays says something important about the temperament and interests of program staff.
- Please be aware that though the descriptions come in part from the organizations themselves, they also depend on the subjective impressions of Shine a light staff.
Move on to Step II: contacting the organization
- Finding the right program for you
Contacting the organization
Waiting... and arranging the details of the trip
Preparing for volunteer work and for living in Latin America
Returning home and follow-up
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