Karikuy Volunteer Program In Detail

If you haven't already checked out the Perupedia project web site please head over to www.karikuy.org/perupedia. You can find more information on the volunteer program and an application form you can fill out if your interested in joining the program. I will now go ahead and explain the program in detail, including your jobs as a volunteer, the meal plan, boarding and explain a basic day in the life as a volunteer in Peru.

Volunteering Information:
-Free Room and Board
- $22 a week meal plan
-Monday through Friday workweek (3 day weekend can be set up for excursions)
-8 hours of work (10am to 8pm lax hours with meal breaks)
-Discounted tours for weekend travel
-Holidays off
-Stress free environment

Work Expected
-Information gathering
-Essay writing
-Web site layout
-Photo editing
-Blogging
-Video editing (not part of job requirement)
-Minor Maintenance (mostly personal cleaning, painting, etc.)

OK great! so lets say you have made the decision to become a volunteer, you fly out to Peru (you pay your own round trip airfare of course) and land at Jorge Chavez International Airport. You'll find me at the airport waiting to greet you and help you change any currency, just as I would any of my customers who come to Peru on one of our tours. Here's where your adventure volunteering in Peru begins. First stop is the bed and breakfast where I will show you around the house and how to use the facilities. I give you the rest of the day off to settle down and take you on a tour of the surrounding area. If it's a weekend we'll go out so you can experience Lima to see what you have gotten yourself into ha ha no joke really your going to have a lot of fun.

On your first workday you get up pretty much the time your use to, just remember you are expected to put in a good 8 hours a day into the project. I will discuss where we're at in the project and give you a starting point from which to begin. For example I could say we need to catalog and write about popular hotels in Puno, you will then get on your laptop (required) and look up the top reviewed hotels in Puno and write a good description for each with location information, current prices and contact info. You have various options in obtaining this information, you can look on the web or call the hotels personally if well versed in Spanish and ask them yourself. This is what we mean when we say the project is looking for good information gatherers.

So back to explaining your day to day as a volunteer. After a breakfast consisting of some fresh bread, eggs, oatmeal, coffee and all that good stuff you head to work. At around 1pm lunch is served, lunch being the most heavy and important meal of the day in Peru, the meal is a bowl of soup and a main course accompanied by some freshly made juice, tea or more coffee. These meal are about an hour long usually depending on how fast you eat and then it's back to work. Dinner is a lighter meal consisting of either the soup or main course from earlier in the day, if your hungry your free to have both. After dinner the clock is at about 8pm and you have an hour or so to wrap up and save any writing you have been working on. The work day normally doesn't last any later then 9 although you are free to work longer if you wish. From the time you stop working until the time you go to sleep you can surf the web, watch TV or movie, and even go out, although I caution anyone from going out at night alone. That's your average work day summed up in a nutshell.

It's also very important to me to hear what you have to say about your experiences in Peru, for that reason I will reserve one day of the week for the volunteer to write a blog about a certain subject that relates to them and their time in the country. These blogs will be posted on a new site and not on this personal blog. That platform, which will debut as soon as our first volunteers join us with the project, will be hosted on the Karikuy web site using Wordpress. This special blogging day will be Fridays unless I specify otherwise or there is a more important topic that needs finishing.

On the weekends you have the opportunity to travel throughout Peru, I would recommend visiting Cusco and Machu Picchu. For longer planned trips I am more then glad to give you a 3 day weekend and even a 4 day weekend depending on the location and the circumstances. I will also honor Birthdays and other Holidays that may be personal or religious. Depending on where you wish to visit, know that you will receive the lowest possible price Karikuy can get you for your travels. All we ask is that while you are away you always carry a notepad with you to jot down information on locations, transportation, prices and news. All this gathered information is extremely valuable in order to help the Perupedia project grow. When possible and if you request I can accompany you on some tours, giving you my expertise on certain locations and helping you with your information gathering.

I have described your work on the project above as information gathering, however at any time and depending on your qualities I could ask you to put a short video together, or to help with the layout of the Perupedia site and edit other sections. Remember that the Perupedia project is very open ended and that there will be other volunteers working from their own homes uploading information into the site from around the world. One of your jobs will be to review these additions and check for errors or misinformation. On occasion I may even ask you to clean your room ha ha if your not too neat that is, or maybe to help me paint a part of the Bed and Breakfast and do repairs, all of these being minor physical work. I hope I have given you a good picture of how volunteers can expect to spend their days in the country. I also want to add that parties and social events are very common so as to not make the program seem uneventful. Peruvians love to dance and have a good time and I am certain you will too.

Peru is a great place to volunteer and I really hope to have a great time with some of you who qualify for this project. Although this isn't your more traditional Peruvian volunteer program, please understand that you are doing a great service to people around the world who wish to know more about Peru , its culture and people. This ultimate reference of Peru will have it's place on the Internet as the most thorough database on Peru and has the opportunity of becoming a focal point on attracting more attention to the social and political issues that affect the country. Depending on the success of this project (which is entirely up to the volunteers, I could never do it all myself) I will choose to open similar projects for other South American countries that would have volunteers be boarded abroad as well. For now I will take it one step at a time and invite you to come to Peru to get to know the country and then share it with the world.

The Perupedia Project

Today I want to explain one of our most ambitious projects, Perupedia. My goal for this project, for which I will be looking for volunteers, is to gather as much information as we can about Peru and its culture. The layout of this project will use the powerful open source Twiki program to collect data not just from me and my volunteers but from anyone willing to contribute to the project. You may ask "Why not just go to wikipedia for the information?", the answer is that although Wikipedia is great for general reference, it is not as in depth as it should be about certain topics. This project will gather information regarding current news, articles, blogs, video and music media, travel and general information about Peru. It will include sections that go far beyond Peru @ Wikipedia.

Our new volunteer program which I will go over in more detail tomorrow will be vitally helpful in building the Perupedia site. I encourage all of you to visit www.karikuy.org/perupedia to visit the landing page and read more about the project. The new landing page includes a volunteer application form for those interested in coming to Peru and helping out. A reason I will keep this post short is because you can find a lot of useful information on that page regarding the project.

So when can you expect to see Perupedia begin to add content? I would say as early as the first week in February. Right now I'm in charge of the huge task of not just installing a massive database addition to the web site but also to begin going over volunteer application forms which I have already received many inquiries about. I guess the free room and board, as well as the cheap meal plan has been very well received and that's a great thing for the project! Although I must stress that I can only have a maximum of 2 volunteers at a time helping me on the project for now. So If you are interested please fill out the application form, if you are interested in working on the project at home you can email me at jctello@karikuy.org.

The State of Karikuy

So how has to worldwide recession affected Karikuy, and what is being done to promote and grow the organization? To answer those questions I will first describe the situation Karikuy finds itself in at the moment.

A year ago as the organization went public and saw its first couple of clients arrive in Peru, the economic landscape was much different then we see it today. There was talk of recession as financial institutions reported on their negative earnings, and for the most part people could sense what was about to happen but wasn't of immediate concern to them. Today as news of the worsening situation is almost inescapable, Karikuy has seen it's clientele cut almost in half.

uncertain future? not really, I don't believe in trying, only doing.

Although many would say that it is probably the worst time to even think about starting a company, let alone an organization that makes very little profit, I differ. Yes it's harder to attract customers then it was a year ago, but you can't fight an economic depression through stagnation and ceasing to create jobs and business. Are their risks? of coarse but through smart investing and managing anything can be overcome. The fact that Karikuy offers tours of Peru at very low prices can also only help in attracting customers who don't have to much capital to spend.

New sunrise, new opportunities.

So what is the state of Karikuy at this moment? It is stable and healthy, all is going according to plan, our goals are still very much the same, and our determination is even stronger. The drop off in customers is expected but not detrimental to our success. In February we will begin advertising on the Internet for budget oriented customers. We have a February sale in effect that slashes $100 off all of our tours in February with the exception of The Backpacker. February is normally a slow month for tourism in Peru as the Inca Trail is closed and the height of the rainy season hits eastern Peru and the highlands. However I encourage all travelers to take the opportunity to visit Peru in February, the New Inca Trail is available and it is summer on the coast with the month long Carnival taking place throughout Peru.

I will also be traveling to Cusco in late February to interview new guides to follow our commitment to offer the highest quality service for your buck. In order to bring you even lower prices Karikuy is planning of starting a Merchandise for Cut in Price service where you would bring certain electronics like laptops or game consoles to Peru, where these items are rare and expensive, to be sold to us at a profit. With the Merchandise for Cut in Price service you could see up to $300 cut off the price of many of our tours. That's a lot of money saved just for bringing in a product as a personal item.

We are always thinking of lowering our prices for our customers, however sometimes we need your help in doing so. the Merchandise for Cut in Price will be optional and if you may have any doubts know that according to customs law you are allowed to bring in several personal items without being taxed at the airport, 1 camera, 1 video camera, 1 laptop etc. Again more information about this service will be available in the coming weeks.

Hard at work; volunteers can expect to be hunched over their laptops at the Bed & Breakfast pictured above.

Finally I want to write a little about our new volunteer program. This program is made available to anybody of any age who wants to spend some time in Lima working on our Perupedia project. this is a very affordable if not the most affordable volunteer program I have seen on the Internet. It includes free room and board and a cheap $70 a month or $22 a week meal plan that includes breakfast, lunch and dinner at the Karikuy Bed & Breakfast. Your job Monday through Friday would be to gather information on certain areas in Peru and present them in a neat format to post on the Perupedia website. For an example pick up a Frommer's or Lonely Planet guide book for a similar layout. This project will be exclusively on the Internet and free to anybody who wishes to know about all things Peru, travel, news, sports etc. On the weekends you are free to travel throughout Peru and see the country, three day weekends are available too if necessary. Or if your a workaholic like me then your free to keep working on the projects or even travel and work on the project gathering information from place to place. More detailed information on the volunteer program will be available later this week.

To conclude this post I want to assure our past customers and our future customers that Karikuy is healthy and we continue to offer our services to those looking for a truly authentic experience in Peru. Later in the week I will explain how the economic crisis has had very little impact on the Peruvian economy itself so far, well that's excluding the tourism industry. Karikuy will always be as strong as its supporters, this is an organization of people and not so much capital. We will ride out the crisis one smile at a time and one adventure after the next.