La Esperanza Granada

Our latest volunteer interview!


Name: Nick Bayly-Jones Nationality: Australian Age: 25  - How did you find out about La Esperanza? Internet research                        
- How long are you volunteering with La Esperanza?  2 months
- What is your current volunteer role with La Esperanza?  I am an English teacher.

- What has been your best experience working as a volunteer at La Esperanza so far?  My best experience with La Esperanza has been seeing my students have the biggest smile and see their confidence grow after learning something, like forming a sentence. When this happens, the students are so proud and go around too all their friends, and other volunteer teachers. This is also a very proud moment for me and the team I work with as it means all the hard work is worth it.

- What has been your worst experience working as a volunteer at La Esperanza so far?  My worst experience has been the lack of structure between what past volunteers have taught and thus what students have already learned…

Our latest volunteer interview!


Name: Lea Jung Nationality: German Age: 25
- How did you find out about La Esperanza? I was searching for volunteer organizations online and came across La Esperanza on volunteersouthamerica.net. After doing some research I found only positive recommendations so I decided to apply.
- How long are you staying here? I am staying for 2 months in total.

- What is your current volunteer role with La Esperanza? Most of the time, I am tutoring first grade students of the school “Nueva Esperanza”, one of the poorest schools in this area.
- What has been your best experience working as a volunteer at La Esperanza so far? One day I was tutoring a boy who had a very hard time calculating math problems. He could hardly concentrate and did not appear very motivated to me. However, when he saw me the next day he immediately ran to me and hugged me and asked if I can tutor him again this day. After working with children in Europe I was really surprised how thankful children …

An interesting blog from one of our volunteers. She talks about her first week volunteering with La Esperanza Granada and the beautiful Laguna de Apoyo!

Floating in a Volcanic Crater: Laguna de ApoyoPOSTED ON OCTOBER 5, 2014BY MARIANA 2 It was difficult, as I lay floating in the crystal blue water, to imagine such a violent event had created such a peaceful place. I came to Laguna de Apoyo after my first week of work with La Esperanza Granada, and I was exhausted. But I learned long ago that the best remedy to my fatigue is a dip in a clean body of water. And so here I was. Twenty three thousand years ago a volcanic eruption here left a crater six kilometers across. Over time the crater filled with water from rain and natural subterranean aqueducts. Today the walls of the crater are covered in dense greenery, and the water is astonishingly clear and thermally vented. At two hundred meters deep, the bottom of the lagoon is the lowest point in Central America. We took a taxi from the cen…