Cloudforest Conservation Programme Volunteer Feedback
Ex-Volunteer Feedback Extracts
Jenny Oliver, Business Analyst from the UK visted La Hesperia from 23 August to 20 September 2010
Hi Vicky,
I hope you are well.
I am back at work now after my travels in South America and just wanted to say thank you for all your help in setting up my time at La Hesperia. It was fantastic.
Alexandra, her family, Walter, Soledad, Elsa, Marcelo, Patricio and everyone else at the reserve were lovely and incredibly hard working; it was a pleasure to meet and work with them.
I hope all goes well in the future with the project and the school and that the potential land reforms don’t cause any problems for their conservation efforts.
Many thanks,
Jenny
Jenny Kershaw, from the UK, spent 9 weeks at the Cloudforest Conservation Project
Hi Vicky,
I am now back in England after going to Ecuador for 9 weeks and working at La Hesperia!
I just wanted to say thank you for all your help before I went. It was my first time away on my own, and out of Europe and you really helped me to sort lots of things out before i went away, and make me less nervous!!!
I had a really amazing time there, it is such a beautiful place!!!!
Thanks again for all your help, i will be sure to recommend Working Abroad to any of my friends who are thinking about travelling!!
Edit Kiss (Hungary) and Antoine Fouquet (France) participated in the Travelling, Volunteering and Learning 2 week programme in August 2010:
We have come back last week from the TVL programme which was a great experience. Both of us liked it very much so thanks again for helping us with organising our participation. We will definitely recommend the programme to friends in the future. Also please keep us on your distribution list as we might want to do another volunteering program in the not so far future.
Kind regards, Edit
Hi Vicky
I have arrived back safe and sound in the UK after my 9 week adventure. Australia was amazing and I have to say very tame in comparison to the wilds of south America. My time at La Hesperia was a joy. I learned more about myself than I would have ever thought possible in such a relitively short perid of time. I now sound like one of those testimonials, which before I thought could only have been inflated by their authors or conjured by the organisation. I now know that in fact niether were the case.
Alexandra is doing amazing things against the odds and she is an inspiration to me. I hope that you and Working Abroad can keep supporting her to your full, as I understand you already do (unlike certain other organisations), especially during this difficult economic period, which is only just begining to affect that part of the world, and will I fear have as of yet have unseen and fareaching effects there.
I think the biggest thing I have taken away with me is how difficult tackling social development, economic & environmental sustainability really is from a grass roots level. Even when the people involved are willing or even pioneering these changes. It has made me want to look into working towards things from a level back here at home that could influence things more widely.
I hope that this e-mail finds you well. I typed it on my computer which now feels like the star ship enterprise in comparison.
Thank you for guiding me to the reserve and all of your assistance along the way.
Kindest Regards, Robert Finlay x
Natalie Aspinall, a Geographer from the UK spent 1 month from August to September 2009 at the Reserve doing conservation and sustainabillity work
Hello,
I've recently returned from La Hesperia in Ecuador and I wanted to say thank you for providing me with the opportunity to go there. It was an experience I'll never forget, and it felt good to contribute something to their project. So, thank you!
Natalie