El Camino Academy welcomes volunteers for short-term service of one to three weeks. Whether you are retired, on a sabbatical, or simply looking to invest your time and skills in a meaningful way, your experience can enrich our multicultural community of students and staff.
Over the years, many visitors have served alongside us, sharing their gifts and leaving a lasting impact on our school. We will gladly help coordinate the details of your visit so that your time with us is both rewarding and comfortable.
To learn more, please contact us at info@eca.edu.co.
If you are/have been a teacher or administrator, you could consider helping in these areas:
- Teacher observations
- Teacher mentoring
- Workshops
- Subbing
- Tutoring
If education isn’t your field, maybe you could consider helping in these areas:
- Technology training
- Library support (we’ll train you!)
- Reading 1-on-1 with/to students
- Being an extra teacher aide to help with small groups, tutoring, math cards, memory quizzing, read-alouds, phonics, vocabulary, spelling, etc.
- Having English conversation or ELL lessons for office staff and aides
- Proofreading English documents
- Organizing closets
- Decorating bulletin boards, etc.
- Sports activities
- Professional/career counseling
- Elective activities for students: art, music, crafts, etc.
- Spiritual emphasis activities
- Chapel talks or retreat speakers (see Calendar under Quick Links on the left for Middle and High School retreats)
- Handyman projects (painting, fix things, etc.)
- Etc. – do you have a gift, talent or some training that could be invested in our school, students or staff?
About the visit
Travel to Colombia can take about one day, so the recommendation is to come for at least one week. The school year calendar is here, to get an idea of when your visit might align best with ECA’s school schedule.
Our teachers normally arrive around 6:50 a.m., but there is flexibility with your arrival time. The teacher vans leave in the morning at 6:10 and 6:20 a.m., but we would suggest you plan to be on campus from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. In the afternoon, there are teacher vans that leave at 4:10 and 4:30, which might serve you well. Classes are from 7:15 a.m. to 2:50 p.m., Mon–Fri (Except Wednesdays, which have early dismissal at 2:10 p.m.)
There are lots of interesting things to experience in Bogotá and Colombia, and here’s a list of some of the most popular ones among our visitors. You can do a Google search on most of them to find out more!
- Bogotá City Tour: Take a cable car up to the Cerro de Monserrate, and walk through the famous mountain-top cathedral; plus have a super view of the city. Tour the gardens and home of “The Liberator,” Simón Bolívar, and see the wonders of the Gold Museum. Visit the famous neighborhood of Candelaria where history still lives. Enjoy a typical lunch, and shop for souvenirs.
- Ministry Tour in Bogotá: Visit a variety of ministries with children and adults, and see and hear first-hand what God is doing in some of the worst neighborhoods of our city. A simple, typical lunch will be served, and time for souvenir shopping is optional.
- Guatavita: Drive 2 hours north to an alpine crater-like lake full of Indian lore of gold-covered chiefs who long ago dove into the icy waters. The hike part-way around the rim gives you a fantastic view of the countryside. A typical lunch will be served at a restaurant near the mountain, and souvenir shops are available.
- Salt Cathedral: Drive 1½ hours north to Zipaquirá to tour the famous Salt Cathedral, a converted salt mine carved inside a mountain.
- Tourist Train: Take the restored steam or diesel tourist train to Zipaquirá for a musical (traveling band!) experience of seeing the countryside. A Salt Cathedral tour package is optional.
- 2 days in Villa de Leyva: Drive 3 hours to a colonial town with cobbled streets, old historic buildings including a nearby Dominican monastery, a fossil museum, horseback riding, and hikes.
- 2 days in hot country: Drive 2-3 hours down the mountain and relax around pools in a tropical climate of 90° weather.
- Rafting and zip-lining in Tobia: Drive down the mountain for 2 hours to the west of Bogotá to the warm town of Tobia, where you can raft (class II and III rapids, depending on the rain) for about an hour. Then take the zip-line between two mountaintops on one of the longest and fastest zip-lines in Latin America. A typical lunch will be served.
- Fusagasugá Coffee Tour: Tour a coffee plantation 2 hours south of Bogotá in a warm climate, and learn about the process of producing the best coffee in the world. Testing flavors is obviously part of the process! A typical lunch will be served.
- 3-4 days to a Caribbean beach: Fly 1½ hours north to either Cartagena or Santa Marta, where there are gorgeous warm tropical white sand beaches.
In general, Colombians dress up more than Americans, even in casual settings. That means that even if the weather may seem warm enough, shorts, capris, sandals, and flip flops are not usually worn in Bogotá. Those articles are fine for at home, during athletic activities, or even at certain times while on vacation in hot country, but worn in Bogotá they make you stand out – not your goal here. In the same vein, jeans need to be nice, not ripped, ragged, holey, or stained. So when at ECA and around town, plan to wear nicer but still comfortable clothing.
You’ll need to cover:
- Airline ticket
- International health/accident insurance
- Housing
- Food – Lunches at school are around $4/day, and supper usually runs $5-10, either cooking for yourself or dining out.
- Recreation
School provides:
- Cultural and country orientation
- A ride to/from school on the teacher van, space permitting, along a designated route
- Help in organizing/arranging:
- Transportation to and from the airport, usually with an ECA family
- Housing arrangements (depending on budget and personal desire, could be in an ECA family’s home, a guest house, or a hotel – between $10-$120/night)
- Ministry opportunities
- Transportation within Colombia
- Leisure/recreational activities
If you’re coming from the U.S. or Canada, you don’t need a visa to come for 90 days or less, but the ECA will help provide you with a special letter that will allow you to do volunteer work at the school. There are no fees.