- May 15-29th, 2019
- TOTAL COST: $2325.00 (USD) + Airfare
- $500 deposit due ASAP to hold your spot on the trip.
- Remaining due by March 30, 2019 or full payment if no deposit.
- $500 deposit due ASAP to hold your spot on the trip.
- VOLUNTEER WEEK:The Dominican Republic is a country with a very special place in the Caribbean. First of all, it shares an island with Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. On the other hand, it is making great progress leveraging itself out of the poverty its close neighbor struggles with. Here you will find many modern elements of daily life – including factories that produce incredible chocolate. That would make it an ideal destination all in itself. But, Volunteer Voyages is all about helping others, so… let’s go to the extra step. The Chocolate factories near Santo Domingo will be happy to have our help in their efforts to produce fine chocolate. So, we’ll work there for a few days. But, at the same time that we are helping them, we can be learning a lot about what is required to produce fine chocolate. Then, during the second half of the project, we can bring it all together.When we arrive in Iquitos, Peru we will go to visit the tribes we have been working with (there are 5 of them, so far) for several years. Several of the tribes have identified the locations where wild cacao trees are growing in the jungle. They will take us to these wild trees and we will help them to collect the ripe cacao pods we will find there. Then we will take the pods back to the village and our real jobs will begin. Based on our experience in the Dominican Republic, we will teach the tribe members how to process these wild cacao pods into high quality cocoa beans that they can sell. In order to be competitive in the international chocolate market they must be selling the highest quality beans possible, and your instruction will allow them that opportunity. This is an incredible opportunity to both learn and teach – chocolate will take on a whole new meaning for you. Please join us in providing more opportunities for people to rise above their ancestral limitations.
- Level of Physical Challenge (easy – 1—-10 – difficult) = 5
- Special Requirements/Qualifications/Skills Needed = None – Learning new skills is part of the project!
- TOURIST WEEK:Our tourist week for this project is actually intricately interwoven with the project itself. In the DR, we will be spending our leisure time with the local population, enjoying their lifestyle and sharing in their merrymaking. When we arrive in Iquitos we will be immersed in an entirely different culture. It will be a blend of the rich European history of the area and the tribal (aboriginal) cultures, with the natural animal and plant life of the Amazon Basin giving a balance to it all. Our working days will not be long, and the rest of our time will be spent continuously discovering the multitude of things that form that important corner of the globe. In the end, you will be hard-pressed to describe your experience in a sentence or two. You owe it to yourself to join us.