Counselling and Social Work in Belize

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  • The Project

    The 1200 students of this community College are from a variety of backgrounds in a very deprived region. There are many issues experienced by these local children as a result of poverty, broken homes and high incidents of domestic violence including internal conflict, anger issues, drug and alcohol addiction and life worries and the college does not have enough skilled staff on hand to provide the counselling and social support urgently needed by children and young adults alike.

    On this project, the college has a small staff that focus on individual counselling for the students as well as providing wider social skills development outside the classroom, including Building School-Community-Parent partnerships, Parental Educational Classes, Youth Leadership Development (working with various student clubs), The High School Life Skills Program, Drug and Alcohol Education and workshops to help students learn how to respond to peer pressure in school.

  • Why the project needs you

    While there is a small counselling program in place, this is inadequately staffed – the High School has one full-time and one part-time counsellor serving over 750 students, and the Junior College only has one part-time counsellor who looks after over 450 students. Volunteers are needed to provide students with the skills needed to be better able to manage and resolve conflicts more peacefully, to understand their problems and to be able to deal with these calmly and intelligently. The social work programmes rely on local and visiting volunteers to commit their time to building initiatives that can help address the wider issues.

    Project Location

    Kaya's programmes are based in San Ignacio and the surrounding communities. San Ignacio, referred to locally as Cayo, is located 2 hours from Belize City along the Western Highway and is a tourist centre. The town and the surrounding communities contain a diverse mix of creole, Maya and mestizo populations. San Ignacio is also an attractive market town set among pleasant tropical hills. The friendly people of San Ignacio enable rich cultural exchanges and productive development projects.

  • Project Facts

    • Duration: 4 weeks – 1 year (preferred placement 6-12 months)
    • Cost: £1265 ($2213) for 4 weeks, £235 ($411) for each week thereafter (contact us for a 3 month+ placement cost)
    • Requirements: Age 18+
    • Location: San Ignacio, Belize
    • Project activities: Counselling, Leadership programmes, Conflict resolution
    • Working hours: Monday to Friday, either 7.50am-3.30pm or 1.00pm-7.00pm
    • Project availability: Project starts 1st and 3rd Saturday of every month. Project closed for the whole of July and August as well as December 19th – January 5th

  • What is included

    •Accommodation: Single/shared room in a home-stay or volunteer house (£20 supplement p.wk)
    •Food: 3 meals per day
    •Airport pick up and drop off
    •Training: Orientation and project induction provided
    •Support: 24 hour support
    •Excursion Planning: Staff can help to suggest weekend activities (activity price will be extra). Trips may include; canoeing through jungle, caves, tubing, visit Mayan ruins, hiking and horse riding.

  • What is not included

    • Flights
    • Insurance
    • Visas

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