ENGLISH TEACHING IN MANIALTEPEC

VOLUNTEER TEACHING ENGLISH IN A RURAL COMMUNITY

Manialtepec is a small village governed by custom and practice. They are their own authority in the village, they produce fruits, vegetables, milk, cheeses, corn, … They are kind and warm to visitors as they like to show what they built in their community.

Most of the community were focused on livestock farming and agriculture, but your host family, started to develop ecotourism. They were the first family who started to bring visitors to Manialtepec, showing the community that it’s possible to live from the land without exploiting it. After that, many groups started to develop some activities to show the beauty of their community and landscapes, starting ecotourism as a way to live without exploiting their land. Before that, they were using horses to carry tools, harvests, or themselves, and they changed their function to do horseback riding, as a way to do ecotourism a few days per week, while horses are living ifree in nature the rest of the time.

During the tours, they talk about nature, traditions, the importance of the ecosystems, the needs to care the enviroment and their community… They show the true beauty of the planet.

This local group owns 50 ha of a forest full of wildlife, where they need hands to make reforestations and to improve their conservation activities.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE ENGLISH TEACHING PROGRAM IN MANIALTEPEC

By joining this program, you will support the local group by helping specially in teaching English in the community, as parents understand the need for the kids to learn it for their future and kids, teenagers are very interested on learning and some adults need it for their job.

As a participant in the English lessons program, your activities might include:

• English workshops with children, teenagers and/or adults
• Preparation of material for the lessons

The local group to whom you are working implement many activities where volunteers also play a key role in supporting initiatives benefitting the community where projects operate. In addition to the development of the community, volunteers can also expect to:

• Ecotourism hiking or riding horses tours for learning more about the area
• Bathing, feeding horses
• Cooking traditional Mexican food with the cooks
• Restoring natural areas by reforestations
• Beach and river clean ups
• Environmental and cultural workshops with children, teenagers or adults
• A day visiting and/or supporting local groups in Chacahua National Park (turtles project from October – April)
• Monitoring wildlife by photo trap cameras and registration of the data
• Supporting the self-sustaining farming initiatives of the ecotourism project
• lIght construction and beautification activities at the volunteers home, Chacahua u other partner projects

It is also important to note that the volunteer schedule is 5 days a week for 4 to 6 hours per day.

Most of the days, there will be extra activities that will depend on the community work: you can support in giving some english lessons to people, environmental workshops with the children, making traditional cheese or bread, cleaning hikking routes, reforestation activities, …

Book your spot for your volunteering experience with the coordinator!