Bolivia: Inter Stars Soccer School

About the local hosting organization

This non-profit, non-governmental organization functions as a sports institution dedicated to the human development of low-income Bolivian children and young people. It leverages opportunities provided by professional and amateur football, both within and outside Bolivia, to achieve this objective. The project’s areas of focus include Children, Youth, Sports, and Education. The Inter Stars School offers programs and activities as an alternative for psychomotor development, constructive use of free time, and integral training. These activities are designed to prevent social issues such as drug addiction, gangs, juvenile delinquency, vandalism, school dropout, child labor exploitation, and intrafamily violence. Simultaneously, the school promotes sports discipline and health, fostering values and principles of solidarity, social coexistence, respect, and tolerance to build a strong sports culture. The primary goal of the school is to develop well-rounded individuals (“people before players”) by educating them based on values and teaching them English, thereby expanding their future opportunities.

Presentation of the programme

Strengthen preventive programs against addictions, drug addiction and the process of change based on linguistic and physical training of students, participating in children’s activities, preparing workshops on different topics, working in the streets informing other children about the project, taking the children to friendly matches, championships, workshops, etc. If the volunteer speaks Spanish well they can participate in therapeutic groups. The project is open to new ideas such as music, languages, other sports or any kind of skills that the volunteer has.

About the accomodation

Host family

About the location

Santa Cruz de la Sierra

Requirements

It is important that the volunteer likes football. Volunteers need to have intermediate knowledge of football, physical preparation, fluent English, open minded, have initiative, creativity, and patience and show a lot of affection for children. They have to be prepared to work in a difficult context and reality because working with children with low resources can sometimes be difficult. Motivation is very important and some knowledge of spanish is preferable.