Travel and Volunteer Teaching English in Chilean Schools

English Opens Doors volunteer with students. 

© This is Chile

 

By Marcela Torres

One of the best ways to experience a local culture is volunteering and spending quality time with the host communities. That’s what the English Opens Doors program, a joint initiative of Chile's Education Ministry and the UN Development Program, offers native English speakers at schools all over the country. Applications for 2012 are open until December 15, 2011.

So, what’s this all about? The Program is currently looking to recruit qualified native and near-native English speakers between 21 and 35 years old to teach English in Chile under the direction of head teachers in public and semi-private schools. Since it began in 2004, English Open Doors has recruited more than 1,300 volunteers from several countries including the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.

Volunteers can select from a broad range of programs lasting from five to 11 months, with start dates from February through July. Full-time volunteers are expected to spend 25 hours a week in the classroom with an additional 10 hours of activities - six hours for classroom planning and four hours participating in extracurricular activities such as public speaking and debating clubs. Part-time volunteers have a teaching load of four to 16 hours per week, perfect for exchange students at Chilean universities.

Orientation and Spanish lessons

If you’re not familiar with Chile or are not fluent in Spanish, don’t worry! Upon arrival in Santiago, you will receive a comprehensive orientation before moving in with a host family in the community where you will be staying. You will also be given free access to health insurance, transportation and teaching materials. They also receive a monthly living allowance of US$120 (CLP 60,000).

Long-term volunteers can also choose to enroll in a two-month Spanish course before undertaking their volunteer work. The course costs US$1,000 with classes catering to beginners, intermediate and upper intermediate students.

Want more information? Check out the National Volunteer Center's website. There’s plenty of information and testimonials from previous participants that will surely inspire you. Don’t miss this opportunity to experience Chilean culture in-depth and give something back to the communities and places that you enjoy!

Going Local in Chile!

 People enjoying a "mote con huesillo" at San Cristóbal Hill, in Santiago.

© Marcela Torres

By Marcela Torres

Traditional tourism, sitting on a comfortable bus and taking pictures of the main landmarks of a place can certainly be fun and interesting. But there’s nothing better than going in deeper into the local culture of a destination and exploring off the beaten path. At least that’s what I try to do whenever I travel and what my company offers people who sign up for tours with us in Chile.

After years of working for several large inbound tour operators in Chile, first as guides and then in other office roles, my sister Paula and I realized that these companies all offered pretty much the same itineraries and destinations, including the same attractions (wineries, museums, etc.). But people were eager to try something different.

The first thing we learned was that most tourists were annoyed when we took them to a fancy jewelry store at the end of their city tour because they could tell that things were overpriced and they felt a pressure to buy. Now, we were forced to do this by the company, but since we were the ones with the angry customers, before we got to the shop we started asking them whether or not they wanted to go. Most of them said “no” and we learned that they preferred to visit a handicraft market where locals usually get their jewelry and where they could see the artisan at work.

Another thing we learned is that they really wanted to taste local food. So we started taking them to the places where we would go to with our families to have some “mote con huesillo”, for example, a traditional summer drink/dessert made of boiled dried peaches and barley, usually with molasses. Everybody loves it!

Once I had a group of British travelers that was worried because we would be visiting the Chilean-Argentinean border at 2,800 meters (9,186 feet) and they had never been at such altitudes. I told them that Andean peoples chewed coca leaves to avoid altitude sickness but that usually a coca tea would do the trick. Guess what? All they wanted was to taste the coca tea! So the driver and I arranged everything. We prepared a thermos with hot water and bought the coca tea bags. When we were half-way up, we stopped to drink it with the Andes Mountains as a backdrop and everybody enjoyed the moment. And no one got sick!

So, these unique experiences are what we try to offer in Chile. We love to take visitors around Santiago on the subway and they like getting a sense of how Chilean people move throughout the city -even if it’s on a packed train during the rush hour- and doing things that local people do.

With our tours to the countryside and the coast, as well as to other regions in Chile, we take visitors to places that are not usually on the radar for foreign tourists. Trekking with llamas in the Atacama Desert, enjoying a traditional meal cooked in a solar oven in the Elqui Valley, learning to make typical Chilean pastries in the Curacaví Valley, seeing how an artisan works with lapis lazuli and copper or just spending quality time with locals from north to south are all part of our offer.

That’s why we’re so thrilled to be part of The Local Travel Movement. We believe it makes a big difference to get a sense of what it’s like to move around, eat and live in a place like a local. It’s certainly enriching for both hosts and tourists and helps people better understand each other’s culture while also having fun and sharing an unforgettable moment. What more could you expect from a trip? Happy travels!

MyNatour Announces Ecotourism Blog Contest Winners!

By Marcela Torres

The long awaited day has come! MyNatour announced today the three winners of its Ecotourism Blog Contest. “The decision was very tough,” says MyNatour founder Davide Valin, “because we received hundreds of amazing entries from freezing Alaska to the Australian desert and everything in between. All of them had some interesting stories; falling in love on the road, biking as a kamikaze, crossing the cold dry deserts, fishing, sailing, surfing, farming, trekking, volunteering on the reef, getting lost in a metropolitan jungle or in the depth of the rain forest.”

After a period of public voting, the judging panel met up during the World Travel Market (WTM) trade show in London to assess make the final decision based on criteria such as creativity, originality, quality of writing, photography, ability to engage an audience (number of supporters) and, most importantly, the talent to inspire others to conserve nature and promote intercultural understanding.

And so, the final winners are:

I° A Garden Lady in India's Cold Mountain Desert (by Shivya)

“Because of the simple yet profound way the author combines several important aspects of what made this trip such a memorable experience: local encounters, education, and of course the natural beauty of the place.” - Ayako Ezaki

II° Reef to Rainforest (by Hobbers)

“How carefully they made a choice of the ecotourism experience they wanted to live through, and whether or not the experience was as rich an ecotourism experience as they thought it would be!” - Ethan Gelber

III° My Trip to Mali: Halt in Terya Bugu (by mariodifra)

“One of the most important things that we need to do when we go to some places is to get to know the place, learn about the place, learn about how they live, what is their culture, their logic and just follow the local logic.” - Aivar Runkel

The 3 winners will be able to choose out of 6 amazing ecotourism holidays for 2 people, courtesy of WHL.travel. Congratulations to all of them!

WRTD 2011: Tourism can help reduce poverty

Harriet Lamb during the WRTD 2011 opening ceremony at the WTM.

© Marcela Torres

By Marcela Torres

“We have the means and the responsibility to help the local communities of the places that we visit and empower them to overcome poverty,” said Fiona Jeffrey, Chairman of the WTM. She also dedicated some words to the many and often unknown industry champions, highlighting that there’s a growing number of people who are working day to day to protect our culture, defend our destinations, conserving biological diversity and contributing to secure the sustainability of our home, Earth.

The official opening speech for this fifth version of the WRTD was presented by Harriet Lamb, Executive Director of the Fairtrade Foundation. Lamb remembered that “twenty years ago, when I started talking about paying fair prices to small farmers for their coffee many people laughed at me saying nobody would be willing to pay more to help people sustain their livelihoods. Well, they’re not laughing now!”

Actually the fair-trade movement has expanded throughout the world and more and more consumers are demanding products with a fair-trade certification. And it’s not just about coffee farmers. The concept applies to all kinds of products and trade areas. Lamb said that 50% of consumers in the United Kingdom, for example, are willing to pay more for a product that is certified as fair-trade.

“And the good thing is that it also makes sense for the businesses,” Lamb said. “Think about it. A large supermarket chain that sold some excellent chocolate actually made the connection while talking to us and they realized that if they did not pay their cocoa farmers well enough, those people would run out of business and they wouldn’t have farmers to supply them cocoa beans to produce their chocolate bars. No beans, no bars. It’s that simple!”

That commercial advantage has also been understood by several tourism companies who are not only paying fairly to their suppliers but also –in many cases- have gone a step further and set up foundations to support education, conservation and even tap water community projects throughout the world.

There is much to be achieved still, however, and Fiona Jeffrey made a call to the entire tourism industry to hop on to the responsible tourism wagon: “This is not just a cultish craze or the latest in-vogue trend to be replaced with something else in a year or two. Increasing numbers of consumers are recognizing that the world –or the industry for that matter- cannot go on in the way it has since mass tourism first came into being.”With more than 300 delegates from all over the world, the World Responsible Tourism Day 2011 was celebrated yesterday at the World Travel Market (WTM) in London, stressing the unique opportunity the tourism industry has in helping reduce poverty throughout the planet.

Observing Whales and Dolphins

Whale watching at Francisco Coloane Marine Park.

© Feel Patagonia

By Marcela Torres

As the summer season approaches, the fascination for whales and dolphins attracts many tourists in search for a close encounter with this charismatic fauna. The activity has benefits and risks, however, and it is necessary to take some precautions to enjoy it responsibly.

Throughout Chile there are 18 dolphin species. The Chilean Dolphin (Cephalorhynchus eutropia) is found in shallow coastal waters, while the Bottle-Nosed Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) is one of the most popular and easiest to see, particularly in the surroundings of the Damas and Choros islands in the North.

Whales can also be seen, mainly in southern Chile, where you can find Rorquals, Southern Right Whales, Sperm Whales and Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae). This species, one of the most fascinating, has an important feeding site in the waters surrounding the Francisco Coloane Marine Park, in southern Chile.

 

To ensure that a cetacean observation experience is fun and safe both for the animals and tourists, the following measures need to be in place:

• Keep a minimum distance of 100 meters (328 feet) from the animal that is closest to the boat
• The speed of boats while approaching and leaving the area should be constant and not exceed 4 knots
• The time of observation for each boat should not be more than 30 minutes
• Don’t ask your guide to chase the dolphins or whales and don’t try to touch them
• When the observation is over, the departure from the site should be carried out slowly and in the opposite direction of the movement of the whales or dolphins

It is important to keep in mind that dolphins and whales at sea are wild animals and we should not modify their way of life or behavior. That’s why it’s so important to avoid stroking them or establishing any sort of unnatural contact and that contributes to modifying their behavioral patterns, for example, getting used to close interactions with humans.

If we follow these guidelines, we will probably live an unforgettable responsible tourism experience.

May I Take a Picture of You?

Quechua weaver in Cusco, Peru.

© Marcela Torres

By Marcela Torres

Meeting people from other countries and cultures is part of the magic of traveling. We often encounter charming people that share their traditions with us and we can’t resist the temptation of capturing that moment with our photographic cameras. This enthusiastic impulse, however, may sometimes cause an unexpected negative reaction.

Several authors warn against the danger of the “tourist gaze”. What are they talking about? Sometimes people from the local community may feel they are being seen as objects; something weird or amazing that must be observed.

In addition, it is no myth that several tribes and indigenous cultures in Latin America reject photographs for several reasons, including the belief that these would steal their soul. From northern Mexico to southern Chile there are many accounts of communities that fear or distrust cameras and the intentions of the people that carry them.

A professional photographer remembers the time he arrived unannounced with some friends at a small town in the Sierra Central in Mexico and was suddenly surrounded by children who were attracted by their “curious” garments and attitudes. But the party ended the moment he took out his camera and aimed at the children, who ran away terrified.

At Ciudad Perdida (Lost City), in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia, due to religious and cultural reasons, people of indigenous origin avoid having pictures taken of themselves, their homes and their objects. Tourists are warned not to insist in order not to make locals uncomfortable by invading their privacy.

The Mapuches, who live in southern Chile and Argentina, also reject photographs. To them, an image has a spirit and if someone captures it that person takes something away from them. This belief has presented a challenge to documentary producers, who always must give signs of respect in order to gain their trust and obtain their footage. Nevertheless, artists often just shoot photos or videos, promising to come back and give a copy, but never show again. It is important to understand that the Mapuches will always ask (and sometimes demand) a token of the time they gave away a piece of their soul. On a few occasions, people have been so offended by being photographed that they have broken tourists’ cameras.

The case of Italian scientist Guido Boggiani is, no doubt, the most extreme. Boggiani lived many years with the Caduveo tribe in Paraguay and was obsessed with body paintings and tattoos, shooting more than 500 photographs that he developed in the middle of the jungle. He was murdered in 1902, when he was 40 years old, and –although it is not really known for certain- it is believed that the motive was his photographic activity, since the expedition that went looking for him found his remains buried with his camera in pieces. After his death, a colleague of his published a series of 100 postcards of this Paraguayan tribe, which included a selection of 12 nude photos especially captured for scientists.

Of course, nowadays it is highly unlikely that anyone will threaten you with death just because you took a picture of them, but it is still worthwhile to avoid an unpleasant situation and show respect for the other person by asking a simple question: “May I take a picture of you?”

Indigenous Communities and Tourism: The Benefits of Co-Management

Lickan Antay Guide at the Soncor Sector of Los Flamencos National Reserve.

© Hernán Torres

by Marcela Torres

Co-management of protected areas by the State and local communities is one of the best ways to guarantee that tourism will provide economic and social benefits to many people who would otherwise be marginalized, at the same time that it ensures protection for the environment on which these communities rely on for their income. An excellent example is the Soncor Sector of Los Flamencos National Reserve, in the Atacama Desert of the Antofagasta Region, in northern Chile.

Los Flamencos National Reserve is located within the Atacama La Grande Indigenous Development Area, which was established in 1997 to promote sustainable development of the ancient territories of the Lickan Antay peoples. Since then, the Lickan Antay communities have strengthened their ancient rights to use the resources, in many cases using traditional ways and in others, applying modern natural resource management techniques.

When the National Forestry Corporation (CONAF) began charging entrance fees to visit the Reserve, at the begining of the 2000 decade, the Lickan Antay Community of Toconao cut off the road to access Laguna Chaxa, in the Soncor Sector, to demand that tourism, carried out in their ancient territories, would also benefit the descendants of this ethnic group that live in this nearby town. Their action brought about a revision of the plan and CONAF and the Lickan Antay communities signed co-management agreements for four of the seven sectors of the Reserve: Soncor, Miscanti and Miñiques Lagoons, Moon Valley and Tambillo.

Income generated from the entrance fees to these sites, which attract national and foreign visitors, has allowed the communities to strengthen programs to aid elderly and disabled people in their communities. At the same time, a significant amount of these incomes is invested in the management of each sector and staff salaries. The inclusion of local community personnel in the management of these sectors has allowed CONAF to redirect its staff to sectors and activities that were previously left largely unattended do to the lack of personnel and resources that affects the institution.

First Sustainable Visitor Center

Because of the increasing interest shown by tourists arriving from the nearby town of San Pedro de Atacama, the community decided to improve the site’s infrastructure and visitor information. To that end, in 2006, it partnered with CONAF and SQM mining company, which exploits lithium in the Atacama Salt Flat, to develop the first sustainable Visitor Center in a protected area in the country.

The project included the architectural design and construction of the Visitor Center, incorporating techniques such as reuse of grey water and electricity generation through solar panels and wind mills. The roads were also repaired and the parking lot expanded.

At the same time, a group of local guides was trained, all of them members of the Lickan Antay Community of Toconao, in interpretation techniques, to convey effectively to visitors the natural and cultural values of the area. To support this, 5 bilingual signs were developed for the interpretive trail and 18 for the inner hall of the Center. A documentary video was also produced, in Spanish with English subtitles, to complement information provided to visitors.

The results could not have been better. Visitors to Laguna Chaxa comment that it is a pleasure to pay an entrance fee because you can see that the revenues are invested in the people and in improving the place, where you no longer find garbage lying around and there is good infrastructure. In addition, tourism has provided local people with a new source of income and each day more and more Lickan Antay Community members seek training to be part of the benefits of responsible tourism.