Peten Volunteers Project - Guatemala

The Volunteer Peten project is based in San Andres. They focus on initiatives that help to educate the local community, in particular about the conservation of their natural environment.

The Volunteer Peten project was set up by Matthew Peters, or Mateo as he is known to everyone in the town of San Andres. Originally he came to Guatemala to work as a Peace Corps Volunteer, but in 2002 he started this project by opening the Parque Ecologico Nueva Juventud (The New Youth Ecological Park), one mile north of San Andres town.

Volunteer Peten has expanded rapidly and now supports a variety of projects in the San Andres area. They focus on initiatives that educate the local community, particularly about the conservation of their natural environment. Deforestation is a major problem in this area. The 150 acre Parque Ecologico Nueva Juventud is owned by the municipal government but managed by Volunteer Peten. Since it opened volunteers have created nature trails, botanical gardens, agricultural areas, a butterfly garden, a pond and a natural history museum. Their aim is to teach ecology and forest management, and to protect local flora and fauna. The park is now used as a centre for environmental education and Volunteer Peten aim to work with over 1,200 local students, teaching them how to manage their environmental heritage.
These projects are funded by donations, volunteers and also by the Nueva Juventud Spanish School. Students live with local families, are taught by local teachers and take part in volunteer work in their spare time. This can include trail maintenance, reforestation, working in the tree nursery, organic farming, ecological restoration and environmental education. The Spanish school provides funding for the rest of the projects as well as income for around 20 local families.

Recently Volunteer Peten completed the construction of a new Community Library for San Andres, and it's this project specifically that Imaginative Traveller has helped to support. The new building includes an area for the books, tables and workstations, a reading area, upstairs theatre and classroom.

It is possible to visit Volunteer Peten on our Central American Adventure and Mayan Explorer tours during the evening and you can spend some time playing with the children, talking to them and reading with them. This offers a great chance to interact directly with the local community and also to practice your Spanish.
The library is always in need of books, DVDs, games, and especially children and adults books in Spanish as well as children's movies with Spanish language options. Donations are also needed to buy materials to construct a good fence around the park (around 4,000m) to stop dogs/pigs coming in from the local area and damaging the plants and wildlife.