Panama Volunteer Opportunities | Boquete Volunteering Projects

Volunteer Projects | Children's Volunteer Projects | English Volunteer Programs | Community Outreach Program

If you have an organization, an NGO, or a volunteer project in Boquete or in the province of Chiriqui and you would like to have it listed on this page please contact us! We are always recruiting volunteers and looking for new places where they can work at. Help us make Boquete, Panama a better place for everyone!

Volunteering Program Overview

Volunteers can choose from many different projects in Boquete, Panama. You can help at orphanages, public schools, wildlife rescue centers, in jewelry making projects, environmental organizations, you can work with handicapped children and adults, literacy projects, you can teach English and so much more! Most of the volunteer projects are based in Boquete, but some take place in David and surrounding areas.

Volunteers can choose to work in any of the following areas:

Children's Program
English Program
Community Outreach Programs

Spanish students can volunteer during half of the day (when they are not having Spanish classes) while non students can decide to join part time (1 to 4 hours) or full day volunteer projects.

We are determined to place each volunteer in a position of interest and passion where you can best use your knowledge, skills and talents. If you would like to volunteer in Panama, but do not see a perfect fit with the projects below, we encourage you to contact us because there is always someone who needs your help! With that being said, we are also extremely grateful for the volunteers who are able to perform the volunteer positions and duties that are currently needed. Each project can only have a limited amount of volunteers at any given time.

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Childrens' Volunteering Projects

In every country of Latin America (and Panama is no exception) there are unfortunately many children who have been abandoned to their own luck, born in homes with no love, abused, or suffer poverty and sickness. These children need a loving heart, attention, education and friends who can help them find a better life full of opportunities, be successful and most importantly: happy!

Volunteers' tasks within the Childrens' Programs may include:

working in orphanages assisting with daily activities such as laundry duties or cooking meals, and childcare duties such as feeding or bathing the children
working with teenage mothers and their newborn children
helping kids from public schools with their homework
running sports' lessons, giving computer instruction, and music, dance and singing classes
helping to prepare meals and secure funding for school's dining rooms
playing with children during their breaks
assisting health professionals to take care of ill children
teaching English or other subjects in a classroom
being a mentor for a group of children once per week

For certain volunteer projects, materials are not provided and each volunteer is encouraged to purchase them before arriving to Boquete, Panama. Many volunteers organize fund raisers before flying to Panama.

Children's projects include:

Por Los Niños
Amigos de Boquete
Music Program
Casa Esperanza
Youth Development Sports Project
Loco por Leer

Por Los Niños

Por Los Niños main goal is to increase the overall wellbeing of the youngest children at Casa Hogar Trisker orphanage. A team of volunteers go to the center twice per week to spend quality one-on-one time with the babies, giving them the love and attention they need at such a crucial time in their lives.

This is a part-time program and operates year-round (excluding public holidays). It is suitable for those who have previous experience caring for children. The primary volunteer responsibility is organizing fun activities for the children. Basic Spanish is useful, but English speakers are welcome.

Casa Hogar Trisker also accepts full time volunteers if they can commit for at least 1 month.

Amigos de Boquete

Amigos de Boquete is a charitable foundation formed by a group of Panamanians and non-Panamanians to assist the school children of Chriqui Province. The Boquete area has a large, generally poor, indigenous population in which malnutrition is a problem. Amigos has found that when food is provided to a school, attendance often grows by over 30%.

The first two schools to which Amigos provided food were Palo Alto and Jaramillo Arriba. By 2006, the number of schools served by Amigos had increased to five with the addition of Estrella Ballis, Alto Quiel, and Jaramillo Abajo. In 2007, Volcancito and Palmira Arriba were added for a total of seven schools. In addition, during 2007 Amigos began providing food to the Medalla Milagrosa and Hogar Trisker orphanages, to Casa Esperanza, and to Buenos Vecinos which aids Boquete residents who are elderly or infirm. In the school year beginning March 2008, Amigos began supporting five additional schools: El Frances Abajo, El Frances Arriba, Pueblo Nuevo, Pueblo Caldera, and Alto Boquete, bringing the total to 12 schools serviced by Amigos. Amigos is now feeding over 1,100 children each school day. In 2008 and 2009, Amigos donated $10,000 to Buenos Vecinos de Boquete to assist it in achieving economic stability as it works to feed over 50 families in great need.

Music Program

Through this music program we empower youth through music, arts and by connecting to their cultural traditions. Music is a powerful tool for children's self-esteem, healing, learning skills, positive development, fine motor skills, and creates a healthy happier community. This music program is currently held at Casa Esperanza in Boquete, Panama.

We are currently seeking skilled musicians to teach the children participating in the project. The project currently has access to a basic keyboard, child guitar, violin, bongos, plastic recorders, tambourines, and some miscellaneous percussion, electric keyboard, adult sized guitar, accordions, drum kit, xylophones, and finger cymbals. The project days and times are flexible pending on volunteers schedule. Spanish conversational speaking skills are needed to effectively communicate with the children. This program operates year round, excluding National Holidays. It is available for volunteers with a commitment of 2 weeks or longer.

Casa Esperanza

Casa Esperanza is one of Panama's most important NGO when it comes to fighting against child labour in Panama. In the urban areas like Panama City they work to keep kids off the streets and in rural areas like Boquete they give their parents alternatives so that they do not have to take their children to the farms where they work at.

Each year more than 3,500 children and 1,500 parents benefit from Casa Esperanza's projects.

The children of those parents who are contracted and cannot afford childcare are referred to the Casa Esperanza Center through the employers at their worksite.

Of seven integral services centers one is in Boquete (the rest are in David, Coclé and the other four are in the province of Panama). At these centers multidisciplinary teams provide children and teenagers with academic support, primary healthcare, nutrition, personal and social development, sports, culture and recreational activities. As a volunteer you can assist these teams in their daily tasks such as teaching the kids, playing with them, helping them with their homework, taking care of them when they visit places outside of the center and organizing birthday parties amongst other things.

Casa Esperanza works with children and teenagers in extreme poverty conditions with a focus on those who must work to contribute to their family incomes. They provide children and teens with academic support, primary healthcare, nutrition, personal and social development, sports, culture and recreational activities. Child laborers are referred to the Casa Esperanza Center where there are educational alternatives aimed at reducing their participation in the work force.

Casa Esperanza is currently in need of volunteers to help with homework, sporting activities, food preparation, life skills, literacy, etc. Long term volunteers may also assist the organizational staff to come up with creative solutions and ideas for the challenges being faced by the organization and participants.

The center is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and offers special activities on Saturdays.

This is a full time placement, available for volunteers with a 2 week or longer stay only. Conversational Spanish is required. This program operates year-round, except the months of January, February and all National Holidays.

Youth Development Sports Project

The Youth Development Sports Project helps children develop team building and social skills, promotes hard work and improves the kid's self esteem, leads them towards a healthier lifestyle, and obviously gives them a wonderful chance to play, laugh and have fun, just like all kids should do... kids should only have two jobs: study and play! When a child can run around with freedom all his troubles seem to float away...

Volunteers can assist at public schools, day care centers or at orphanages. Volunteers can expect to practice and teach soccer, gymnastics, baseball, basketball, kickball and many other sports.

This program is part-time and will need to be combined with other projects to make up a full-time schedule. If you like to play, run around, and let that inner child in you loose, then this project is for you!

Loco por Leer Reading Project

Loco por Leer (Crazy about Reading), our local reading and book-lending program, began back in December 2008, at the library in Palmira Centro, and has now expanded to other places within our community. Literacy levels are very low within the indigenous communities of Panama, and those who do learn to read, aren't overly enthusiastic about books. Loco por Leer promotes the joy of reading and provides many children with the opportunity to spend quality time with someone who gives them love and respect.

Every Saturday morning, Loco por Leer offers a program of reading in small groups: exploring topics through writing exercises, information organization and creative activities. Each session ends with the children choosing a book to check out and take home for one week. Loco por Leer owns a library of childrens' books in Spanish donated by Books for a Better World, the Boquete Rotary Club and many other generous individuals.

The Loco por Leer group is always in need of advanced level Spanish speaking volunteers to read with the kids on Saturdays and project leaders whom wish to start their own Loco por Leer group. Book donations are always happily received.

Each program is unique and has its own needs. Some projects have many children, others have a few. Some have plenty of resources available yet others have almost none. In some organizations you will receive abundant help and you will have specific tasks and duties and other projects require self-motivated individuals that can lead their own way. As schools close from December to March, certain projects don't run all year long.

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Community Outreach Programs

Habla Ya is extremely passionate about collaborating with local based organizations who day and night work hard to build a better community for every single "Boqueteño". Volunteers have the opportunity to work with the disabled, animal and wildlife programs, nutrition and empowerment projects, and community recycling. As some of the projects are not full-time, volunteers may take part in a flexible schedule, which includes a combination of projects.

Projects include:

Paradise Gardens Panama
REAL Boquete Recycling Center
The Gem Project Panama - Women's Empowerment
Fundación Pro-Integración: Boquete Handicap Foundation

Paradise Gardens Panama

Paradise Gardens is a Wildlife Rescue Center where animals are accepted when the creature's life is in danger, or that its quality of life can and will be greatly improved by its removal from its current living conditions.

Paradise Gardens provides suitable and appropriate care and/or medical treatment until such time as the animal is healthy and ready for release back into the wild. Sometimes this can be as long as 12 months or even up to 2 years. There are cases however, as for example with a Margay and a Capuchin Monkey, where Paradise Garden realises that it cannot release them back into the wild for they would never be able to manage their reintegration and so Paradise Gardens keeps providing the very best care and accommodation that it can and work very hard to make them as happy as possible.

Paradise Gardens is not a zoo and does not purchase animals for the purpose of putting them on public display. Paradise Gardens hosts sloths, monkeys (tamarins, capuchins, howlers), kinkajous, margays, ocelots, jaguarundis, anteaters, cockatoos, macaws, parrots, owls, toucans, and many other species. If you are visiting Boquete, Paradise Gardens is definitively a place that you should visit.

Toucan at Paradise Gardens in Boquete Panama

Volunteers can come from a variety of sources and places and currently Paradise Gardens has helpers who give their time during a week or an extended stay or even, some who come specifically from abroad to help and gain much needed experience. Paradise Gardens continually needs help from people to give guided tours to visitors, cleaning out and feeding the animals, socialising with the animals and providing translations into other languages.

REAL Boquete Recycling Center

REAL ("Reciclaje, Ambiente y Limpieza de Boquete"), a non-profit ecological organization founded in 2001, has set itself the goal to educate the community of Boquete about the importance of protecting our environment.

REAL started as a small but committed group of Boquete residents who saw how the garbage in our community was alarmingly increasing. This group decided to start recycling. First of all they secured buyers (mostly in David) for several materials such as plastic, glass, aluminium, paper and cardboard, and afterwards they presented a plan to Panama's Ministry of Education in which the children of several public schools would be responsible of sorting out and classifying the materials that REAL would collect (REAL has a drop off point in the center of Boquete). In this way Boquete's youth would learn and be educated about waste and about recycling, and the funds obtained from recycling would go back to each school and each school would decide how to use the funds in their own school (something really needed in our Public Schools).

As of now, REAL Boquete works with five local schools and the last Saturdays of each month are known as recycling day in Boquete.

REAL is continually looking for volunteers. Volunteers can give speeches about recycling at local schools, train teachers so that they can then educate their students about recycling, organize the sale and weighing of materials to be recycled, monitor the recycling programs at each school, classify and receive materials at the recycling center, transport the materials to David, help with sales and marketing about recycling, management tasks, translations, promote recycling in Boquete and Panama in general, to seek more efficient ways to run the recycling center and to expand their operations.

The Gem Project Panama - Women's Empowerment

The GEM Project is a jewelry-making empowerment program that inspires positive thinking, global giving & creative power for positive individual & social change. The GEM Project is currently working with mothers with children with disabilities and young pregnant teens who are struggling to care for themselves and their babies.

The GEM Project is currently seeking skilled jewelry designers, GEM Mentors, GEM Motivational Leaders and much more! Both English & Spanish speakers are welcome. Both men and women are invited to join The GEM Project team, but men will be more limited in participating with certain activities and events.

Fundación Pro-Integración: Boquete Handicap Foundation

The Handicap Foundation of Boquete, founded in 1989 is one of many chapters of the main office in Panama City. It is a non-profit organization established in 1983 with funds from the 20-30 Teletons.

All chapters such as ours are volunteers (including handicap family members) interested in helping the handicap community (especially the most economically depressed) improve their life style. We are able to supply wheelchairs, crutches, walkers, canes, occasionally hearing aids, and funds for children to attend special education classes, physical therapy, doctor's appointments and medications.

There are no dues and the only requirement for membership is a desire to be of assistance to the handicapped community. This can be offered through professional skills such as teachers, medical personnel, physical therapists, or personal time in reading to children, playing games, doing handcrafts, or anything that would interest the specific needs of each handicapped child or adult.

Our funds are raised through projects such as the sale of prepared food or used clothing, raffles and auctions as well as donations from community members.

The new facilities are located in Alto Boquete on the east side of the Boquete to David road approximately 500m south of the Guadalupano School. It is a blue building with a red roof and surrounded by a cyclone fence.

Space available in certain projects is limited. The amount of hours to volunteer on some projects is fixed, hence, if you would like to volunteer for a certain amount of hours per week your choice for projects might be limited and/or you might be required to work on several projects. Volunteers can work beyond their commitment. It is vital that you are flexible and willing to adapt to situations as they arise. Once you complete our Volunteering Interview we will be able to discuss your Volunteer Project Placement(s).

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English Program

The ability to speak and understand spoken English, and to read and write, has always been vital for many Panamanians since an important our economy is based on services to foreign countries. And nowadays, with the growth of the tourism industry, English is becoming even more and more important. Not knowing English, limits ones opportunities considerably.

Knowing the importance of English as a second language, Habla Ya Spanish School lends its premises after office hours to the English Volunteering Program in Boquete... and the match turns out to be perfect because those who really want to learn English normally have a job and are only available at the end of the afternoons.

A teaching qualification is not necessary but patience and leadership are. Volunteers can teach children or adults, either in a group setting or through private lessons.

During its first year of existence, Habla Ya also had an English Program (for profit) and the English Volunteering Program has benefited from that initial syllabus, course contents and materials.

The days and times vary. It generally runs Monday - Friday, but for some students, on Saturday's also. A minimum 2-week commitment is helpful for this program. Please note, Children's English Classes are on break January - March. The Adult Program operates year round, and observes National Holidays.

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Volunteering Fees

50% of Daily Volunteer Fees go directly as a donation to each NGO

Habla Ya's role is essential because most NGO's in Panama do not have the ability to place and manage volunteers by themselves. Setting up your volunteer project with us ensures a meaningful placement in which your skills and talents will be fully exploited.

There are two fees associated with volunteering in Boquete, Panama: Placement Fee* ($50 for students, $175 for non students) and Daily Fee ($15 per day). 50% of your Daily Fees goes directly to the NGO where you will be working at (although participants are encouraged to give an extra donation upon arrival or before leaving Boquete, Panama).

Placement fee covers: airport or bus station pickup in David, organization, orientation session, training, volunteer goal setting session and lodging setup (but not lodging itself, and for those doing a home stay, no additional home stay setup fee has to be paid). The Daily Volunteering Fee also covers on-going support from the partner organizations, permanent contact with Habla Ya's Volunteer Director either at the school or by email and telephone and access to Habla Ya's staff on every day of the week from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Also included in your volunteering fees: extra activities such as opportunities to attend weekly salsa lessons, wifi access, regular social gatherings and a certificate of completion.

* The only exception to these fees is when you volunteer for less than 5 days in which case there is no placement fee: only a $25 per day (students) or $40 per day (non students) fee. In this case $10 per day goes to the volunteer organization where you will be working at and these daily fees do not cover the home stay setup fee if students decide to live with a local host family. Student's volunteering fees apply when you sign up for at least 10 hours of Private Lessons or for 20 hours of Group Lessons.

Volunteering Rates for Habla Ya Students

	Amount of Weeks
Days per week	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	each extra week
1	$25	$50	$75	$100	$125	$140	$155	$170	$185	$200	$215	$230	$5
2	$50	$100	$140	$170	$200	$230	$260	$290	$320	$350	$380	$410	$10
3	$75	$140	$185	$230	$275	$320	$365	$410	$455	$500	$545	$590	$15
4	$100	$170	$230	$290	$350	$410	$470	$530	$590	$650	$710	$770	$20
5	$125	$200	$275	$350	$425	$500	$575	$650	$725	$800	$875	$950	$25

Volunteering Rates for Non Students

	Amount of Weeks
Days per week	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	each extra week
1	$40	$80	$120	$160	$250	$265	$280	$295	$310	$325	$340	$355	$15
2	$80	$160	$265	$295	$325	$355	$385	$415	$445	$475	$505	$535	$20
3	$120	$265	$310	$355	$400	$445	$490	$535	$580	$625	$670	$715	$25
4	$160	$295	$355	$415	$475	$535	$595	$655	$715	$775	$835	$895	$30
5	$250	$325	$400	$475	$550	$625	$700	$775	$850	$925	$1000	$1075	$35

Volunteer orientation sessions take place whenever a volunteer arrives to Boquete, Panama and volunteer placements can start on any day of the year. Volunteers are encouraged to arrive on the Friday before their placement to have the weekend to explore the area and gain comfort with the culture. You may stay for one week to twelve weeks. Your stay can be extended beyond twelve weeks on a case-by-case basis (depending upon visa requirements). Fees can be paid upon arrival. Your program fee does not cover your accommodation nor the transportion from your accommodation to your volunteer project each day.

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