As a Venture with Impact-er, you will shape your own destiny. We’re just here to make the ride a little bit easier and a lot more fun. Here’s what an average week might look like for our participants joining the Peruvian pilot program in Trujillo this winter.
Monday
Forget Monday Monday: at Venture with Impact it’s Monday Funday!
Most of the group works a hard 8 hour day on their laptops at home or in the number of cafes dotting Trujillo’s Plaza de Armas.
Dan and Lila have Mondays off, and they’ve arranged to spend all eight Mondays of the program teaching English at a public school in Alto Trujillo through Espaanglisch’s Little English Program.
Tuesday
Another day at the office! Except today’s office is the large beachside Otra Cosa café in Huanchaco, twenty minutes from Trujillo.
A few participants grab tamales by the national university’s teeming campus for lunch.
Uri and Meg work standard hours of 8 am to 4 pm each day for their jobs as recruitment managers in the San Francisco Bay Area. They’ve signed up to volunteer with Earth Peru, a local environmental agency. Today they’re taking a break from installing solar panels in schools throughout Trujillo, and are joining local volunteers for a massive beach clean-up twenty miles north of the city along some of Peru’s most pristine coastline.
The two VWImpact-ers make it back to Trujillo just in time to meet the rest of the group as they wrap up the evening with local red grape wine tasting during a history lesson on Peruvian independence at Cafe Dezona Deza in downtown Trujillo.
Wednesday
Early bird surfing is in season in January! We’re catching waves by 7:30 and back online by 9 am. Most of the group frees up their afternoon for a 3 pm cultural tour of the city by a guest lecturer from the University of Trujillo’s architecture department.
Solo-seeking Han is not down for the group fun today. He’s applying his educational background in finance to volunteer at SKIP Wednesdays and Saturdays. At SKIP’s office in Trujillo, Han works with local accountants to arrange micro-financing and crediting options for Peruvian farmers.
That night the full crew of 20 Impacters and 2 VWI staff gather in one of Trujillo’s "Huariques" or small local Peruvian eateries. Participants share large fuentes of ceviche mixto and bottles of the local Cusqueña beer. At our weekly Huarique meetup, we discuss how everyone’s volunteer projects are going, what to prepare for the optional upcoming weekend trip, and take time to hash out any concerns our Impacters have about work, social life, or anything else on our minds.
Thursday
While most of the crew is using this Thursday as a work day and splitting their professional time between their wifi-connected apartments and the VWI lounge, Ethan is assisting veterinarians at a local animal shelter by bathing, feeding and playing with a new litter of puppies as well as administering vaccines to newly registered animals.
Friday
Although the majority of VWI participants work remotely from their jobs back home, Ethan, Krista, and Juan have decided to take the full two months to volunteer and travel. Krista is a freelance photographer and has volunteered part of her time to visit the sites of many of Venture with Impact’s partner nonprofits to take photos. Juan spends his mornings at Huanchaco beach teaching swimming lessons and his afternoons planning and implementing public health workshops with Vive Perú. Working with Vive Perú, Juan has found that one of the local communities is not thoroughly sanitizing their water. This Friday Juan is holding a workshop for families about the importance of using clean water, and methods for purifying their water.
Saturday-Sunday
The weekend is here! Almost all participants leave early Saturday morning for the planned but optional 4 hour trip to Huamachuco, in the Sierra of Perú. Upon arrival half the group decides to hike 8 km to the ancient site of Marcahuamachuco with a local guide, while the remainder of the group spends the afternoon in the nearby public hot springs. Everyone meets up later that night for Pisco Sours, the national cocktail and canchas (corn nuts). A few people taste fried cuy (guinea pig!), which is popular in the sierra region around Huamachuco.
After a night in a local hospedaje, VWI participants explore the local market in the morning sipping quinoa from a cup that was sold to them by a street vendor. The group catches a bus back to Trujillo in the early afternoon so that they are fresh for another week of work, volunteer and travel!
