Where Do I stay during my volunteering program? What do I eat? What about shower and restrooms? Do you accommodate special diets?
Volunteers placed in Atenas projects stay with a well-screened host family. Volunteers in San Jose reside at our homebase – a permanent home set aside for international volunteers and manned with a local staff. Our host families offer a private room and shared bathroom facilities. Many houses in Costa Rica do not have hot water. Our host families are well versed in the art of hosting international volunteers. Our San Jose homebase provides a same-gender shared room and shared bathroom with running hot water and a “western” style toilet. You will have the ability to do your laundry in the house or the host family may offer to do it for you.
You are provided with three prepared meals per day. We do not accommodate special diets except for vegetarians. If you will be out of the house during lunch hour, you can request a lunch "to go" that you can take with you or eat out on your own. The home stay families provide typical meals that are traditional to Costa Rica. They try to do their best with vegetarian options, but you must clarify any special needs ahead of placement. If traditional Costa Rican fare doesn’t appeal to you, you are welcome to buy your own food and prepare it yourself. The simple rule is to please not use a homebase’s or host family’s food for your own use. If you have other needs for food outside of these meals, you are able to purchase snacks and meals at local restaurants and grocery stores.
Throughout the volunteer project, our local staff stays in contact with volunteers either with face-to-face visits or via email/telephone. With longer placements, we visit our volunteers every two weeks (when possible) and volunteers are always welcome at the local office. If project placement is local, we request that volunteers stop by the office once a week to keep us posted on how they are doing with their home stay and project. If project placement is very far, then our local staff members maintain communication by either email and/or phone.
The mission of IFRE Volunteers is to offer the most affordable as well as the highest quality volunteer and humanitarian abroad experiences - enabling us to make a contribution for all of humanity in its quest to make the world a better place. Through our volunteer and humanitarian trips abroad, we aim to spread love and compassion worldwide while improving the lives of destitute children and less-fortunate communities. We at IFRE also seek sustainable solutions in the fields of education, healthcare, conservation efforts and development issues through international volunteering.
