The Enchanting Challenge Blog

ECOTULUM HERE WE COME!!!

2 students have officially bought their plane tickets to MEXICO for the Educational Ecological Service Trip!!!  Hurray!!  We are on our way to rainforest reconstruction, learning lessons in sustainability from the ancient Mayan culture, and so much more…4 more students are looking into plane tickets, but there are more spaces awaiting, so just let me know if you want to join in this exciting ecological mission!!!

The students will arrive in Tulum on Monday, March 16th.  At the resort, they will be met by the lovely Gabriela Miranda, who will welcome them and help them to settle in.  The service breakers will eat a scrumptious dinner on the evening of their arrival, and then will go to sleep in their cabana, getting ready for the first day of service on Tuesday, March 17th.

Service activities will be planned for Tuesday, March 17th; Wednesday, March 18th; Thursday, March 19th; and Friday March 20th.  Saturday, March 21st will be a free, do-as-you-please beach day.  Go splash in the Caribbean Sea and reward yourself for all your eco-accomplishments during this wonderful week!!  The specifics of the service activities will be planned in the upcoming days ahead.  (Join in the planning: the first meeting is on our Facebook Group: Tulum-Bound, tonight at 5:30 pm CST!)  The options for the activities include a beach clean-up at the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, volunteering in a Mayan hospital and/or Mayan library, a day in the jungle (perhaps accompanied by a biologist!), a day learning and participating in Mayan cultural activities, and a day visiting and learning from Mayan ruins!!

INSPIRATION

Check out the amazing site “Imaginative Traveller” for inspiration on why service vacations are the MOST rewarding and the MOST fun!!  As the volunteer-trip organizer Bruch Haxton sums up, “There is a huge amount of fun [in service trips] and people don’t always understand that.  It is about having fun & doing something worthwhile at the same time.”

MORE ON THE DOCKET…

If you can not come to the Educational Ecological Service Trip in Tulum this March, do not despair, for there are a handful of other exciting Enchanting Challenge opportunities just around the corner!  The next one takes place this August in Mendoza, Argentina.  Here is a profile of the Mendoza program scheduled for August.

Fundacion Viviencias Argentinas

For the Mendoza service trip, Enchanting Challenge will partner with Fundacion Viviencias Argentinas, a foundation that has been running service trips for the past 10 years in Mendoza.  This year they have decided to open their doors and welcome anyone to do service with them, which is where Enchanting Challenge comes in!  We at Enchanting Challenge want to invite any interested parties in joining on this lovely adventure to serve the Mendoza community.  Together on this trip we will spend one week working with orphans and disadvantaged families in the city of Mendoza.  After one week we will trek out to the nearby Desierto Lavalle (also in the Mendoza province) for another week, where together we will work with the indigenous communities, participating in various community development activities.  Read below for a list of activities that will be covered in these two weeks.

Working with Orphans and Disadvantaged Families in the City of Mendoza

During our one week in Mendoza, we will do a number of community-enriching activities with the children of Mendoza.  These activities will include the following:

1. Helping with school work
2. Helping with health care needs
3. Organizing donation drives for clothing, shoes, toys, games, and more
4. Organizing and participating in recreational activities

Working in the Desierto Lavalle

For the second week of the Mendoza service trip, our group will head into the Desierto Lavalle, where we will work with the Huarpes Community, an indigenous community native to this region.  We will participate in the following activities:

1. Organizing donation drives for shoes and games for more than 35o children (a tall task, but one that I know we can accomplish)
2. Organizing donation drives for the fundamental elements necessary for rural life, such as electricity generators, medicines, and vaccines
3. Organizing donation drives for school-children’s needs, such as clothing and computers
4. Helping to teach energy efficient living and farming practices, such as cooking in a solar kitchen, sustainable planting and harvesting methods, and methods to increase the quality of the drinking water
5. Participating in the important cultural events of this region

Contact Me if You are Interested!!

The two core parts of the Mendoza service trip–the week in the city and the week in the desert–come together to create a rejuvenating and rewarding experience.  Volunteers on this trip will stay in homestays, making it a cultural experience as well!!!  For more information on the Mendoza service trips, check out Agustin’s blog here.  If you are interested in joining this trip, please contact me at sarahannmaxwell@gmail.com and I can give you more details!!!  And, most touching and exciting of all, check out pictures of this service trip here and here.  They will melt your heart!!!