Guyana makes a great gap year and volunteering holiday destination thanks to its amazing wildlife and amazingly friendly people.
In Yupukari, Guyana (the only English-speaking country in South America), villagers will teach you their indigenous knowledge while you contribute your strengths in reading, writing and technology to their self-development projects.
Villagers of all ages will teach you to fish, farm, weave a hammock, plait a basket, make and use bows & arrows, paddle a dugout, cook over fire and many other indigenous skills the same way they teach their own family.
These student-villager co-creative partnerships have yielded the first digital maps of the community; the first catalogue of medicinal plants; the first books from oral stories, among other projects that have been transformative for locals and visitors alike.
This working relationship allows both parties to develop an appreciation of their own knowledge, gifts and strengths, while learning lifelong skills and forming deep friendships.
Rupununi Learners – finding out more
The host organisation is a village-run NGO, Rupununi Learners, which operates a guest lodge, Caiman House, where you will live. 100% of revenue surplus from visitors goes to the village public library, wildlife research and cultural preservation. In 2012 Caiman House received the Caribbean Sustainable Tourism Award.
This gap semester program is based on an award-winning, university-accredited Study Abroad program, but with a focus on “learning from living” rather than fulfilling academic requirements.
The experienced staff are a mix of villagers, Canadians and Americans.
Find out more here on the Gap Semester Webpage, and read more about Caiman House in Tom’s blog.
Please get in touch for more information, and read our Volunteer section.
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The high point was a sea lion swimming with us whilst snorkelling off Cape Rosa amongst the lava ‘tunnels’. We have a video of this taken by the snorkel leader playing on our digital frame at home. The low point were the Avianca flights out and back to Galapagos from Ecuador mainland – an airline & staff that really don’t care about you! The day tours were all excellent – sometimes the description was a little vague – for example the Volcano tour on Santa Cruz was a 5 hour 10 mile hike on muddy paths and uneven lava fields, with only a couple of short stops, that needed a good level of fitness but was pitched as a 2 to 4 hour ‘walk’. Food on some tours was a little basic and not very vegan whilst on others it was superb, e.g. the vegan vegetable rice served on one of the boat tours. The highlights were the snorkelling trip to Cape Rosa tunnels and the visit to the Bartolome Island, plus the small plane trip back from Isabela to Santa Cruz. The guides were all very knowledgeable and friendly – William and Martin stood out. We feel we benefited the local people. We had lots of feedback from locals thanking us for staying on land rather than going on one of the boat cruises What we would do differently is probably fly between islands rather than taking the speedboat – and perhaps fly to a third island as we had long enough there to spend three days on a third island (Cristobal?) We chose Andean Trails because it felt like a focused agency that specialised in the area and we liked Kat!
Prof Bob
We had a wonderful time in Galapagos. We really appreciated the guide we had: he gave us so much information, he made us feel safe and took us to the most spectacular snorkelling sessions. I can’t describe any low points. Everything went very smoothly: starting from Quito airport, the welcome in Baltra, the boat and the whole crew. The crew did their best to accommodate all our requests and desires. The only thing I would do differently next time is choose a longer holiday :).
A Calinici