Casa Milagro Foundation is a not-for profit organization dedicated to working in the areas of environmental conservation, education and community development in the country of Costa Rica. The foundation is divided into 3 programs: Tropical Adventures, Vecinos del Mundo (VdM) and the Environmental Policy Advocacy Program.

The Community Program Intern would be working with the VdM program. The mission of this program is to bring cultures and people together in the community of Hojancha, Costa Rica in a collaborative effort to increase cross-cultural understanding with an emphasis in community development, education, culture and conservation. Vdm is still in the development phase so the Community Program Intern will assist us with building up the program and developing the first projects.

The town of Hojancha is not much different than many other small, rural towns in Costa Rica. The list of problems includes, but is not limited to, the following:

  • Large percentage of students that do not finish school

  • High rate of alcohol and drug abuse

  • High rate of teen pregnancies

  • Lack of activities available to residents

  • Lack of resources to help people return to school, or to prepare for and search for a job.

 

Hojancha is however a good place to live for families though since it is a quiet town and it is a very clean town compared to other towns in Costa Rica.

The overall goal of VdM is to set up a facility to house programming but since that would cost a lot of money we are first starting with building up the program by starting with some projects. While we are developing this new program, at the same time we are becoming more immersed and knowledgeable about the community and the actual and perceived needs before rushing into developing intensive programs. Ideally we would like to implement some projects, some ideas include:

  • Language Exchange

  • Cultural Events

  • Educational Activities

  • Entertaining Activities

  • Student Training & Support

  • Community Technology Center

 

We already started with language exchange and we have had our first cultural event. If all goes as we expect, this model will be used as a template for starting with VdM in other towns in Costa Rica. The Community Program Intern would assist us with developing the entire VdM program and getting the projects started. Another part of the internship would be dealing with coming volunteers. The Tropical Adventures program of the Casa Milagro Foundation brings in volunteers to help the VdM program. Since the Community Program Intern would be developing the program and its projects, the intern would also coordinate volunteers that are here.

 

Position Location: Hojancha, Guanacaste, Costa Rica

 

Duties and Responsibilities:

  • Managing project development and execution from concept to reality.

  • Working with Executive Director (ED) for the culmination of project charter outlining goals and objectives, logic models, budget, timing, deliverables, project scope, and required resources.

  • Assessing needs and potential opportunities for youth engagement.

  • Researching community feedback by communicating in person with the community whenever possible and by making evaluation forms on a regular basis.

  • Completing work breakdown structure for the estimation of efforts needed for each task.

  • Research and meet with possible partners, establishing rapport with local administrators.

  • Research possible funding sources.

  • Gather data to be used for marketing purposes, as well as photos. Then provide the data in a format that can be used on our website.

  • Resolving issues and solving problems throughout the project cycle.

  • Tracking and reporting project milestones and providing status reports to ED.

  • Determining the test results of projects and completing project evaluations to determine the expected results.

  • Developing tools and applying best practices for the execution and project management.

  • Event management.

  • Volunteer Management.

  • Ensuring successful archive of project documents after the project completion.

 

Position Sample Tasks:

  • Work together with the Language Exchange Intern on the Language Exchange Project by doing some sessions as well. This will help you with improving your Spanish as well.

  • Managing cultural events at least twice a month. This includes: creating promotional material, promoting, budget management and more.

  • Welcome the volunteers when they arrive, organize complete daily schedules of activities for the volunteers, provide a quality orientation with the volunteers.

 

Benefits of this position:

  • Getting to live in Costa Rica and travel to various projects in the country.

  • Getting to know the Costa Rican culture.

  • You will gain experience in multiple fields: Project Management, Marketing and Program Development.

  • Gain experience working with people from different cultures and backgrounds in a meaningful way.

 

Requirements:

  • Must be able to speak Spanish and at least a moderate level of English.

  • Must be a good communicator.

  • Leadership qualities and excellent problem-solving ability.

  • Ability to work well with limited supervision.

 

Not included:

  • There is no salary or stipend for this internship position

  • No plane tickets or transportation will be provided

  • No work visa is provided. You will come on a ‘tourist’ visa and will be required to leave the country every 90 days for at least 72 hours. This is legal and is very easy and very inexpensive to do. We will help you figure it out.

 

Things which are included:

  • Travel expenses will be provided for any official travel inside of Costa Rica.

  • If space is available, lodging can be provided for between $100 and $150 inside the house where we have an office. If nothing is available during the time period the intern is available, we will assist you in finding something suitable nearby, either another house or a host family. A host family would cost between $100 and $350 depending on the situation.

 

If you are interested in applying for this position, please send your cover letter and resume to us by clicking here.

 

 

Last updated 24 October 2012