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Four weeks into our placements, and there seems to be no absence of weird, wonderful and first time experiences in Villa El Salvador.  Parque Huascar Amidst the arid landscapes of the coast is Parque Huascar, the current placement of myself, Hussein and Stephen. The ecological park is home to a diverse zoo, lagoon, swimming pool and several species of wild birds. It receive

  We arrived at our new home after a short bus trip from Barranco. Instantly you can tell the difference from the well developed capital city of Lima; Villa El Salvador is still a place that is developing. With the dusty streets and hoards of dogs that roam around, it comes as no surprise that Villa El Salvador is a young district that is built in the middle of a desert. In f

The weeks here are really beginning to fly, it’s hard to believe we’ve been here for a month already! We finally started work this week which we were all really happy about; we all feel like we have a proper purpose here now. The last week has been quite a tough one, not only was one of our team members sent home with malaria, but our electricity was also cut off and we’ve had no running

We’ve finally arrived in Salima! We’re all ready and raring to get our project underway. Over the first few days in our house, the colleagues we’ll be working with dropped by to introduce themselves. First of all we met Janet who was to be our house-helper for the next 8 weeks, and our guard who watches our house at night, although we did catch him having a sneaky nap one night!

After a week of culture training, some of the group decided they wanted to experience some of the things we had learnt first-hand. On Sunday we woke up bright and early and headed down some dusty roads to a local church. On arrival we split up into boys and girls and took our seats in different areas of the church. The church leader was happy to see us attending, and got us to stand up and intr

Following two weeks of intensive in-country training, we will be heading off to Salima to work with Malawi Interfaith Aids Association. We will be involved in projects aimed at changing communities’ views and perceptions surrounding HIV, AIDS, gender issues and abuse. The aim of this blog is to keep you as up to date as possible with information on our experiences.

We arrived in Peru after a long tedious flight, which was particularly difficult for me as a result of my long legs. As soon as we got out of the airport we were met by our in country coordinators who were greeting us enthusiastically to our new surroundings. Easily noticeable, as we were all wearing our Progressio t-shirts, they quickly introduced themselves and ushered us towards the mini bus

Admittedly John Lennon (quoted in the title) was my least favorite member of The Beatles but this week I believe that this quote has been proven to be true time and again. The plan was to leave Suchitoto (El Salvador) and stay at an organization called CBC (Centro Bartolome de las Casas) where we would stay for one day and then jog on to San Julian, the location of our first plac