• Children of prisoners: This home is for children who have nowhere else to go while their mother is in prison. The home provides them with some form of stability offering food and a roof over their heads. The children stay at the home for varying lengths of time but all of them are without parents and are deparate for love and attention. You will need to spend time with the children, play with them, help with homework, listen to them. Children of the Prisoners deparately need volunteers who can give a lot of love and attention to children who crave affection.

• Teaching: You could work in the University of Ecuador if you are a qualified teacher. Alternatively, teach in the biggest and best-known public girls school in the city of Quito, in a Spanish Language school or even in the Institute School of English (this is the only salaried position).
• Art museum: A privately funded art museum located in Quito. It promotes understanding and snowledge of modern art. The exhibits are mainly works by Guayasamin and Kingman. If you are a professional artist, you can give art classes to children and adults. Other volunteers are needed to talk about art to the public. Translators are also need for correspondence and office work.

A few other projects to think about: hospital care, shelter for the poor, working with Downs syndrome children. There are also environmental projects such as, cloud, rain, dry, jungle or mangrove forests, or you could try working at

A volunteer's perspective

An extract of a letter from a volunteer who has been to Ecuador:

"Throughout my stay I lived with a ‘family’ though it wasn’t a ‘family’ in the way I had expected. It was just an elderly lady and her 35 year-old daughter.

My host mother provided me with breakfast and dinner each day.Conversation was in Spanish which got easier as time went by. During my first two weeks there was another English girl staying in the house.

In all I spent seven and a half weeks based in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. The first three weeks were in school doing a crash course in Spanish. The school was really good; there were four in my class which is the maximum you ever have there. 

For the subsequent four and a half weeks I worked on two volunteering projects.  The main project I worked for was in the women’s prison in Quito. I was in the nursery with the babies and toddlers who have to live in the prison while their mothers are serving their sentence. They have no other family or those they do have are also in prison elsewhere.

The other project I involved myself with was working in the ’Fundacion Jovenes Contra el Cancer’ which is a charitable support organisation for young people with cancer. I taught and chatted in English to the young people for two hours on both Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

It was an amazing experience overall and it made me appreciate my life here in England all the more.

I will hopefully do something similar in the future, but not just yet!"

Margaret (October to November 2007)