Amigos De Las Americas

Causes: Children & Youth, Education, Graduate & Professional Schools, International, International Cultural Exchange, International Development, International Exchange, Youth Development

Mission: Amigos de las Americas of Washington DC -http://www.AmigosDC.org - recruits high school students from the Washington metropolitan area to participate in six and eight-week community health projects in Latin America. Amigos volunteers work during the summer in communities, schools and health clinics in eight Latin American countries where they are invited to provide public health and environmental education activities. For over 30 years, the AMIGOS mission to provide leadership development opportunities for young people, promote community health for the people of Latin America, and encourage cross-cultural understanding among the peoples of the Americas, has challenged its teen volunteers to appreciate the world from a cultural and economic perspective profoundly different than their own.

Programs: 7 More than 19000 volunteers sent to Latin America since 1965

7 Volunteers from Amigos in 1999: over 600

7 Volunteers from Washington DC Chapter in 1999: 21

7 Host communities: over 250

7 Lorena stoves constructed (1998): over 500

7 Latrines completed or in progress (1998): over 2000

7 Teacher housing in Costa Rica

7 Community sanitation in Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay

7 Youth-to-youth program in Dominican Republic

7 Gardening in Paraguay, Home improvement in Honduras