Let’s begin with uncomfortable honesty: orphanage volunteering is controversial, ethically complex, and potentially harmful if done wrong. International development experts, child welfare organizations, and researchers have documented serious problems with orphanage tourism: children exploited for volunteer fees, attachment trauma from revolving volunteers, institutions kept open because they’re profitable rather than because children need them, and well-meaning volunteers doing more harm than good.
We’re not going to pretend these concerns don’t exist or aren’t legitimate. They are. And if you’re considering orphanage volunteering, you need to understand the ethical landscape before deciding whether to proceed.
What this program actually is: Supporting established Peruvian children’s homes that care for vulnerable children who genuinely cannot live with their families – not because of orphanage tourism demand, but because of abuse, abandonment, extreme poverty, parental incarceration, or family circumstances that make home placement unsafe or impossible. You’ll provide educational support, recreational activities, emotional consistency, and help with daily care routines under strict supervision by permanent staff who are the children’s primary caregivers.
What this is NOT: Playing with cute kids for photos, being a temporary “parent” figure who bonds intensely then disappears, practicing childcare skills on vulnerable children, or participating in an industry that separates children from families for profit.
Critical context about “orphanages” in Peru: The term “orphanage” is misleading. Most children in Peruvian children’s homes (hogares de niños) are NOT orphans. They have living parents or family members but cannot safely live with them due to: documented abuse or neglect, parental substance addiction, parental incarceration, extreme poverty where family cannot provide basic care, family violence, or other circumstances where child welfare services determined institutional care was necessary.
The goal should always be family reunification when safe and possible, or permanent placement with adoptive families – not indefinite institutional care. Well-run children’s homes work toward transitioning children to family settings. Poorly-run ones perpetuate institutional care because it’s profitable from volunteer fees and donations.
We work ONLY with established Peruvian children’s homes that:
Your role is fundamentally different from staff: You’re NOT a substitute parent, primary caregiver, or the person children should attach to most deeply. Permanent Peruvian staff fill those roles. You’re a supplementary presence providing: homework help, English practice, recreational activities, creative programming, emotional consistency, and additional positive adult attention – all while maintaining appropriate boundaries that acknowledge you’re temporary.
The age and duration requirements for this program are the STRICTEST of any program we offer:
Minimum Age: 20 years old. Working with institutionalized children requires exceptional maturity, emotional regulation, boundary awareness, and understanding of child development and trauma. Twenty-one is the absolute minimum; we prefer volunteers 23+ years old.
Minimum Duration: 2 weeks absolutely required, 8+ weeks strongly preferred. This isn’t flexible. Children in institutional care have already experienced instability, loss, and often trauma. Short-term volunteers who bond with children then disappear after 1-2 weeks recreate abandonment experiences. Four weeks minimum allows you to be consistent presence without creating and then severing attachment. Eight+ weeks allows deeper relationships while still maintaining appropriate boundaries about your temporary status.
We turn away volunteers who want shorter placements regardless of their other qualifications. Children’s welfare takes absolute precedence over volunteer desires.
Background Check: MANDATORY AND NON-NEGOTIABLE.
The work is emotionally intense. These children have often experienced abuse, neglect, abandonment, or trauma. They have behavioral challenges, attachment difficulties, and complex needs. You’ll hear heartbreaking stories, witness behavioral problems stemming from trauma, and face the reality that you can’t fix their situations even though you care deeply.
Some children will test boundaries constantly. Others will cling desperately to any adult attention. Some will be aggressive or rejecting. A few will seem to have no effects from their experiences. All of them deserve consistent, boundaried, trauma-informed care from adults who understand what they’ve been through.
This program operates as part of My Peru Destinations with experienced local coordinators who understand both child welfare and volunteer supervision ethics. You have 24/7 support for the challenges you’ll face and strict oversight ensuring your work benefits children rather than harming them.
We strongly discourage this program for: Anyone seeking emotional fulfillment through children’s attachment, people with savior complexes, volunteers primarily motivated by getting photos with kids, those unable to maintain professional boundaries, anyone uncomfortable with the ethical complexities of institutional childcare, or volunteers who can’t commit to minimum duration requirements.
This program might be appropriate for: People from 20+ with genuine understanding of child development and trauma, people who can maintain boundaries while caring deeply, volunteers committed to supporting Peruvian staff rather than replacing them, those willing to do unglamorous support work, individuals who understand their limitations and the ethical concerns, and people who prioritize children’s needs over their own volunteer experience.
Your day-to-day activities at a children’s home in Cusco focus on supporting permanent staff and providing supplementary care, education, and activities for children ages approximately 3 to 17 years old. Group homes typically house 15-35 children with permanent Peruvian staff who manage operations.
Morning (varies by home schedule):
Some children’s homes want volunteer help with morning routines (waking children, breakfast preparation, getting kids ready for school) starting around 6:30 or 7:00 AM. Others prefer volunteers arrive after children have left for school, around 9:00 AM.
If you’re combining with Spanish classes (possible but uncommon for this program given the time commitment children need), mornings would be Spanish study while children are at school.
Morning Tasks When Children Are at School (9:00 AM – 2:00 PM):
When children attend regular Peruvian schools during the day, volunteer morning activities include:
Facility Maintenance and Preparation:
This work is unglamorous and physically demanding. It’s also essential for maintaining safe, clean living environment for children. Volunteers who try to avoid this work in favor of only “fun” activities with kids miss the point that children’s basic needs matter most.
Activity Planning and Material Preparation:
Good programming requires preparation. Volunteers who show up without plans waste valuable time with children.
Administrative Support:
Afternoon – Children Return from School (2:00 PM – 6:00 PM):
Children typically return from school between 1:30 and 2:30 PM. The afternoon and evening are when you provide direct support and interaction.
Homework Help and Educational Support (2:30 PM – 4:30 PM):
Most children need homework assistance. You’ll work with multiple kids simultaneously or in small groups helping with:
Children in institutional care often struggle academically due to disrupted education, trauma effects on concentration and learning, and limited individual attention. Your patient, consistent homework help makes real difference in their educational success.
Challenges: Children with attention difficulties, behavioral problems disrupting study time, wide range of abilities and ages needing different support levels, limited resources and materials, frustration when children don’t understand concepts, managing multiple kids wanting help simultaneously.
Snack Time and Informal Interaction (4:30 PM – 5:00 PM):
Shared snack time provides informal conversation, relationship building, and relaxed interaction. You help:
Structured Activities and Recreation (5:00 PM – 6:30 PM):
You lead or assist with recreational and educational activities:
Sports and Physical Activities: Soccer, volleyball, tag games, relay races, dancing, jump rope, or whatever gets kids moving and burning energy. Physical activity is crucial for children in institutional settings who need healthy outlets.
Arts and Crafts: Drawing, painting, collage, sculpture with clay, jewelry making, seasonal decorations, or creative projects. Art provides emotional expression and skill development.
Music and Performance: Singing, simple instruments, dance, drama games, talent shows, or creative performance. Many children love performing and gaining confidence.
Educational Games: Board games teaching math or reading, memory games, puzzles, trivia, educational competitions, or skill-building activities disguised as fun.
Life Skills: Age-appropriate cooking, cleaning, money management basics, hygiene education, social skills practice, conflict resolution, or practical life preparation.
Free Play Supervision: Sometimes children need unstructured play while adults supervise for safety and provide presence without over-programming.
Individual Attention: Throughout activities, providing one-on-one time with children who need extra attention, comfort, or conversation.
The goal is engaging children meaningfully, teaching skills, providing positive experiences, and creating sense of normalcy and fun in their lives.
Evening Routines (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM or later):
Some volunteers stay for evening routines; others leave before dinner. Evening activities include:
Dinner Assistance:
Bedtime Routines:
Evening routines require patience with tired, sometimes cranky children who’ve had long days. Bedtime resistance, sibling conflicts, and behavioral issues often peak when kids are tired.
Weekend and Special Activities:
Weekends often involve special programming:
The Emotional Reality:
Throughout all activities, you’re navigating complex emotional dynamics:
This emotional complexity makes the work challenging even when surface activities seem straightforward.
What You’re NOT Doing:
You’re NOT providing primary caregiving that children depend on for basic needs. Staff do this. You’re NOT becoming a substitute parent figure with deep exclusive bonds. This creates harmful attachment and abandonment. You’re NOT making decisions about children’s welfare, discipline, or care. Staff manage this. You’re NOT “saving” children or being their hero. You’re a supportive presence supplementing professional care.
Orphanage and children’s home volunteering has the absolute strictest requirements of any program due to ethical responsibilities and children’s vulnerability:
Minimum Age: 20 years old, preferably 23+.
The maturity, emotional regulation, boundary awareness, and life experience required for working with institutionalized children necessitate higher minimum age. We will not make exceptions. Children’s safety and welfare take absolute precedence over volunteer desires.
Minimum Duration: 2 weeks ABSOLUTE MINIMUM, 8-12 weeks STRONGLY PREFERRED.
This is non-negotiable. We turn away volunteers who want shorter placements regardless of qualifications. Here’s why:
Children in institutional care have experienced instability, loss, abandonment, and often trauma. Short-term volunteers who bond with children emotionally then disappear after 1-2 weeks recreate abandonment experiences and attachment trauma. Research shows this pattern is genuinely harmful to children’s psychological development.
Four weeks allows you to be consistent presence and develop rapport while maintaining boundaries about your temporary status. You’re there long enough that your presence is stabilizing but not so long that children view you as permanent caregiver.
Eight to twelve weeks allows deeper, more meaningful relationships while still being honest with children about being temporary. Longer commitments are significantly better for children’s wellbeing.
Volunteers who leave after bonding deeply in 2 weeks do actual harm. We will not facilitate this.
Psychological Health and Emotional Maturity:
You must be in good psychological health with emotional maturity to:
Active untreated mental health issues, recent major trauma, current crisis situations, or emotional instability disqualify you. You cannot provide stable presence for traumatized children while struggling with unaddressed psychological challenges yourself.
Understanding of Child Development and Trauma:
Basic knowledge of:
We provide training, but you should arrive with foundational understanding. This isn’t babysitting – it’s working with vulnerable children who have complex needs.
Ability to Maintain Professional Boundaries:
Absolute commitment to:
Volunteers who need children’s love and attachment for their own emotional needs should not do this work. Children aren’t here to fulfill your emotional requirements.
Physical Energy and Stamina:
Ability to:
This is physically demanding work requiring stamina and energy.
Spanish Language: Intermediate Level Required:
You need enough Spanish to:
Children can’t modify their Spanish for your learning curve, and miscommunication creates problems. Basic Spanish is insufficient. Intermediate minimum, advanced preferred.
We recommend combining with Spanish classes if not already fluent, but understand children’s needs limit how much time you can dedicate to classes.
Flexibility and Adaptability:
Children’s homes are unpredictable:
You must adapt gracefully rather than complaining about imperfect conditions.
Commitment to Supporting Staff, Not Replacing Them:
Understanding that:
NO Savior Complex:
You must check Western savior complex at the door. These aren’t helpless children waiting for rescue. They’re resilient kids navigating difficult circumstances in a Peruvian child welfare system with its own approaches and values. You’re supporting existing systems, not imposing “better” Western solutions.
Acceptance of Ethical Complexity:
Willingness to sit with uncomfortable questions:
This work requires thinking critically about your role and impact, not just feeling good about helping kids.
Our Orphanage and Children’s Home program includes everything needed for ethical, well-supervised volunteer experience:
Accommodation with Peruvian Homestay: Private bedroom with carefully vetted family in residential neighborhood. Homestays provide cultural immersion, Spanish practice, emotional support base separate from the intensity of children’s home work, and respite space. All families personally selected ensuring safe, clean, welcoming homes.
Volunteer house accommodation available as alternative if preferred.
Meals – Breakfast and Dinner: Included with homestay. Home-cooked Peruvian meals. Lunch varies – some children’s homes provide lunch for volunteers, others you bring packed lunch or eat nearby.
Airport Pickup: Team meets you at Cusco airport and provides transfer to accommodation.
Comprehensive Orientation Including Specialized Child Welfare Training:
First 3-4 days include extensive preparation:
General Cusco Orientation: City navigation, safety, culture, practical information.
Child Welfare and Trauma Training:
Facility-Specific Orientation:
Ethics in Orphanage Volunteering:
Placement at Licensed Children’s Home: Matched to facility appropriate for your skills, Spanish level, and commitment duration. Clear information about the home, children’s age ranges, staff, expectations, and schedule.
Supervision by Permanent Peruvian Staff: You work under direct oversight of trained childcare professionals who manage the facility. Staff provide ongoing guidance, feedback, support, and ensure your work benefits children.
24/7 Coordinator Support: Local Cusco team available around the clock for emergencies, concerns about children’s welfare, emotional support for challenging situations, ethical dilemmas, or any needs. Direct contact with coordinators who understand child welfare complexities.
Regular Check-ins and Debriefing: Structured opportunities to process difficult experiences, discuss challenges, receive feedback on your work, and ensure your emotional wellbeing while doing this demanding work.
Self-Care and Vicarious Trauma Support: Resources and support for managing emotional toll of working with traumatized children, including debriefing protocols and access to professional support if needed.
Certificate of Completion: Official documentation specifying dates, hours, nature of work, and evaluation. Useful for education programs, social work applications, or personal records demonstrating commitment to child welfare.
Pre-Departure Preparation Materials:
Background Check Processing Assistance: Guidance on obtaining required criminal background check from your home country.
Optional Add-Ons:
Spanish Classes: Available but less common for orphanage volunteers due to time demands of children’s home work. If combining, shorter Spanish sessions or weekend intensive classes might work better than daily morning classes.
Weekend Activities: Access to trips to Machu Picchu and other destinations at volunteer rates when you have free weekends.
NOT Included:
Orphanage and children’s home program pricing is personalized based on duration and specific placement. Transparent quotes with no hidden fees.
How Pricing Works:
Contact us with:
We respond within 24 hours with exact quote and comprehensive program information.
Factors Affecting Price:
Payment Terms:
Price Transparency: Everything in “What’s Included” is covered. No surprise fees except background check actual cost.
Extensions: Many orphanage volunteers extend because relationships with children deepen over time. Extensions use same rate structure. Give at least two weeks notice to arrange continuation.
For Specific Quote:
Email us or WhatsApp us with your information and confirmation that you’ve read and understand the ethical requirements and concerns about this program.
Contact us for exact pricing.
Isn’t orphanage volunteering harmful to children?
It CAN be harmful if done wrong:
It can be LESS harmful or even helpful if:
We can’t eliminate all concerns about orphanage volunteering. We can only minimize harm through strict protocols, duration requirements, supervision, and honest discussion of ethical issues.
Should these children be in institutions at all?
Ideally, no. Family-based care (with biological family, extended family, or foster/adoptive families) is almost always better for children than institutional care. Peru, like many countries, is working toward reducing institutional placements and increasing family-based alternatives.
But until that transition happens, children currently in institutions deserve quality care, educational support, positive experiences, and consistent adult presence. The question isn’t whether institutional care is ideal (it’s not) but rather how to best support children who are currently in this system through no fault of their own.
Long-term solutions involve supporting family reunification programs, foster care development, adoption systems, and poverty reduction so families can care for children. Short-term reality involves caring for kids currently institutionalized.
Are these children actually orphans?
Most are not. They have living family members but cannot safely live with them due to documented abuse, neglect, abandonment, parental substance abuse, extreme poverty, parental incarceration, or other circumstances where Peruvian child welfare authorities determined institutional placement was necessary.
The term “orphanage” is misleading and outdated. These are children’s homes or residential care facilities for kids who cannot live with their families temporarily or permanently.
Am I taking a job from a Peruvian caregiver?
No. These facilities employ permanent Peruvian staff who are children’s primary caregivers and continue working regardless of volunteer presence. Volunteers provide supplementary support, educational enrichment, and additional attention that overstretched staff can’t provide alone.
Your role is “extras” – homework help, recreational programming, one-on-one attention – not essential caregiving that staff should be doing.
How do I know the facility isn’t exploiting children for volunteer fees?
We work only with licensed Peruvian children’s homes that:
We cannot guarantee perfection, but we vet facilities carefully and monitor ongoing operations.
What ages are the children?
Typically 3 to 17 years old, though specific homes may focus on particular age ranges. You’ll work with mixed ages simultaneously, requiring different developmental approaches.
What have these children experienced?
Many have backgrounds including:
Not all children have trauma histories, but many do. This affects their behavior, attachment patterns, and needs.
How do I handle children’s behavioral problems?
Follow staff protocols exactly. You’re not making discipline decisions independently. When children act out:
What if a child becomes very attached to me?
This is common and requires careful navigation:
Can I stay in contact with children after leaving?
Generally no. Clean endings are typically healthier for children than ongoing contact with volunteers who aren’t part of their permanent support system. Facility policies regulate this, and you must follow them.
Some facilities allow very limited contact (annual cards) but many prohibit it entirely to prevent dependency on temporary volunteers.
What if I learn about ongoing abuse?
Report immediately to facility staff and our coordinators. Peruvian child welfare system has mandatory reporting protocols. You’re obligated to report suspected abuse to proper authorities through appropriate channels.
How emotionally difficult is this work?
Extremely. You’ll:
Only choose this if you’re genuinely prepared for emotional challenges and have good self-care strategies.
Can I bring gifts for the children?
Facility policies vary. Generally:
What if I realize this isn’t right for me?
Communicate immediately with coordinators. Sometimes volunteers realize after starting that they can’t handle the emotional intensity or ethical complexities. We’d rather facilitate a thoughtful exit than have you stay while struggling, potentially affecting children negatively.
However, sudden departures harm children. If possible, give at least one week notice and have appropriate closure activities.
What difference can I actually make?
Realistic impact includes:
You CANNOT:
How can I maximize positive impact?
Does short-term volunteering help or hurt?
Honest answer: potentially both. Four weeks minimum reduces some harm from attachment/abandonment but isn’t ideal. Eight+ weeks is significantly better. Two weeks or less is almost certainly harmful and we won’t facilitate it.
Impact depends entirely on how you approach the work: with boundaries and humility or with savior complex and inappropriate attachment.
Final Thoughts Before You Decide:
Orphanage volunteering is the most ethically complex, emotionally demanding, and potentially problematic program we offer. We include it in our offerings because these children’s homes exist, children are currently living in them, and quality supplementary support can benefit kids even within an imperfect system.
But we will not pretend this work is uncomplicated or that good intentions automatically equal positive outcomes. It requires exceptional maturity, strict boundaries, cultural humility, tolerance for ethical ambiguity, and honest self-reflection about your motivations and impact.
Only choose this program if:
Choose a different program if:
Contact us to discuss orphanage volunteering only after seriously reflecting on whether this is appropriate for you.
Part of My Peru Destinations – committed to minimizing harm in orphanage volunteering through strict requirements, honest ethical discussion, proper supervision, and prioritizing children’s welfare over volunteer satisfaction.
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