August 1 - September 29 Coastal Ecuador For specific internship descriptions, please visit our website: http://www.3malliance.org/index.php?id=320
We are working towards a sustainable future in the rainforest of Ecuador and we need help! A few years ago, a few of usecology, economics, and business graduates founded a non-profit organization called Third Millennium Alliance. We raised some money and bought a lot of land in a critically endangered rainforest and established an ecological reserve. There was a small patch of previously degraded land right in the middle where we have built an innovative and surprisingly comfortable research station out of bamboo, by hand. Immediately surrounding the house we are designing/growing/building a living laboratory of sustainable resource management (i.e. permaculture). Once we had our feet under us in the reserve, we partnered with a local family to establish a learning center and volunteer house in the nearby hamlet of Camarones. There we pursue sustainable community development and education. From these two project sites we are pursuing a locally appropriate model of sustainable living. Our goal for ourselves is 100% food self-sufficiency within ten years. For the surrounding communities we seek economically and ecologically sustainable alternatives to logging, hunting, and cattle ranching, which are the major threats to this endangered habitat. INTERNSHIP PROGRAMS: Interns at the Jama-Coaque Reserve are encouraged to take on high-impact and dynamic projects; we are a young organization forging our path as we discover it. There is a tremendous amount of work to be done and experience to be gained for interns and for us. Above all, creativity and innovation is the basis for our intern program. And our objective, as lofty as it sounds, is to find, prepare, and join forces with the next generation of practitioners and leaders in the field of ecologically sustainable human progress. We believe the strength of our intern program is its encouragement of interns to give free reign to their creativity. Where you have experience, you will be given the chance to really apply it to build and design systems; to develop curriculum and put it to use. If you do not have experience, you will enjoy a steep learning curve and will not leave without having achieved a level of practical and theoretical knowledge and experience that will serve you for the rest of your life. To be clear: this internship program is for self-starters and people with initiative. Despite the natural beauty of the land and the comfort of the program sites, conditions here are challenging - nothing is accomplished without surmounting obstacles. If you are still interested, please read on. The two month sessions begin with a comprehensive orientation to both the community of Camarones and the Jama-Coaque Reserve. You will get your hands dirty right awayharvesting semi-wild oranges and bananas, bathing in waterfalls, making hot chocolate from home-grown cacao, processing coffee grown on the reserve, and hiking up to the cloud forest. Throughout the session we explore, in activity and conversation, what it means to be a volunteer and guest in coastal Ecuador, as well as the nature of the ecological crisis facing us here and around the world. We challenge ourselves and each other to grow intellectually, spiritually, and physically. From reading critical essays, to meditating by the waterfall, to candlelight group yoga, we have a lot of fun pursuing (our interests).
