Build homes for underprivileged families

Product Details

Costa Rica is a tropical paradise where rainforests meet golden beaches, and the ‘poco a poco’ (little by little) pace of life is guaranteed to make volunteering a rewarding experience.

Many Costa Rican families live in homes that don't have adequate sanitation or safe weather protection. Volunteer work in Costa Rica on this project runs alongside these families to build better homes with local, sustainable materials. You will be working with a rural housing association founded in 1989 who has become specialized in providing housing to rural populations. The foundation currently works with 62 rural organisations distributed in the 7 provinces of the country, such as cooperatives, local agricultural centres, labour and community development associations. Due to the nature of the work, you might not see the house completed while you're there, but the reward comes from working alongside the families whose lives you are helping to change.

Project details:
Our building projects in Costa Rica work with The Fundación para la Vivienda Rural Costa Rica-Canadá. This foundation was established in 1989, when the Costa Rican - Canadian Rural Housing Programme, was founded thanks to a contribution from the Canadian Government. The people from Fundación have become specialised in rural housing and they operate with a network of rural organisations, which are responsible for proposing families for a house, to help them fulfil the established requirements, to advise them during the construction process, and to collect the monthly loan payments. Therefore, it is not a charity giving away homes but a foundation. Each project is a cooperative effort incorporating the home recipient, volunteers from inside and outside the immediate community, and the foundation. The labour contributed by homeowners and volunteers, which we call "sweat equity", keeps house costs affordable.

Why the project needs volunteers:
25% of the world lives in inhuman conditions and more than 100 million do not have a house. Sign up for building homes in Costa Rica alongside fellow i-to-i volunteers and the Fundación para la Vivienda Rural Costa Rica-Canadá in order to carry on this work and help to provide homes to the communities where it is most needed.

Your role as a volunteer:
You will get involved in all aspects of the building but this will depend on the stage you get involved in the building. You could help build septic tanks, lay floors, dig trenches and help put on roofs amongst other tasks.

Where the project is based:
Please arrange your flight to arrive into San Jose on the specified arrival date. The majority of volunteers will be placed in San Ramon, they also work within all of the provinces of Costa Rica and so could be based anywhere around the country as the need of the organisation dictates. You will be staying in a local home stay where you can immerse yourself in the culture and it will help with Spanish learning.

Our users say:

I only stayed for one week, but I absolutely loved every minute of it. The work was hard, but very much worth it. I enjoyed the program especially because I feel there could have been no better way to be immersed in the culture. The homestay family was beyond magnificent, and the food, and the projects. All of it was more than I'd hoped for, and it has helped me to believe even stronger that humanitarian projects is the line of work I hope to spend the rest of my life doing. Thank you for such a wonderful opportunity as this.

Amanda:
Build homes for underprivileged families in Costa Rica