Costa Rica Sports and Teaching

The Costa Rica Sports and Teaching Programme is a fantastic opportunity to volunteer and coach sports on the Pacific Coast of Central America. Located close to our popular turtle conservation programme, this sports project allows you to offer your volunteer services in both teaching and through sports. Teaching Physical Education in the mornings and then coaching sports in the afternoons gives you the chance to make a wider impact within the school and help disadvantaged children in this beautiful part of Costa Rica.

This volunteer programme is ideal if you are interested in helping under privileged children and want to immerse yourself in a Spanish speaking culture.

Project Age Limit
Minimum age 18, maximum decided on potential participant’s health Project Requirement: High beginner or intermediate Spanish

Sports Volunteer Programme
Working within the local school, your main responsibilities are to teach physical education classes, with a lesson structure you will create and follow on from previous volunteers. Unlike the UK, Physical Education is not a compulsory part of a child’s schooling in Costa Rica, with resources generally being spent on buildings and teaching materials. With limited budgets and lots of students to teach, schools are therefore forced to follow a limited curriculum in which sport and physical wellbeing are excluded.

In the mornings, you will help to teach PE classes in the school, as one of the main PE teachers. You may have the chance to shadow the local teachers for a number of lessons and work as a teaching assistant to start. However, in some cases you may be required to run the whole class and even formulate your own lesson plans! The schoolteachers will give you all the assistance you need to do this and help you with teaching techniques and class standards.

The afternoons, after school has finished for the day, are then your time to run sports coaching clinics and organise games for the school children and other children from the local community. You are able to vary the sports you play – football is the main sport in Costa Rica, played by boys and girls alike. However, other sports are also popular, like basketball, volleyball and even baseball.

Volunteer Role
During your project, you will have the opportunity to take part in the following programme activities:

Of course, the exact nature of your role will be dependant upon the sport you wish to teach, however, the basic role will remain the same. You have a lot of flexibility as a sport volunteer to coach your sport in the way you see fit. The important thing is to remain confident and to keep your sessions fun!

Please Note: Sports facilities and equipment in Costa Rica are not the same standard as those you expect in the West.

Equipment is often old, with facilities at a minimum. If you are looking to introduce a new/different sport, equipment will not always be available. In instances like this, we recommend that you do some fundraising so you can donate some equipment to the project.

Coaching Placement
Your volunteer placement is the Matapalo primary school, the biggest school in the local area. It has over 200 students, with just three classrooms, a bathroom and a cafeteria. The sports field is located directly in front of the school. The children generally come from poor families in the village.

There are not enough rooms at the school to have all the children in a single timetable/schedule. Groups have to share the same classroom, meaning that students of different ages, ability and even subjects are taught in the same class at the same time. For this reason, one group has classes three days in the morning and two days in the afternoon, and the second group the other way around. Because of this, you will have opportunities to coach sports clinics in the mornings and afternoons, when some students are not at school.

Turtle Conservation
Volunteers on this programme can also join the turtle project as well, however, this is optional. Volunteers patrol the beach at night, searching for nesting turtles, eggs and hatching turtles. Once a turtle is found, volunteers have to measure it, tag it, help the guide of the patrol taking care of the eggs, and finally take them to the hatchery. At the hatchery, volunteers take the temperature of the nests and if there are baby turtles hatching out, count them and prepare them to be released.

Project Support
During your programme, you will have the support of our local coordinator, normally one of the schoolteachers. They will provide you with competent field support and assistance, and help you with any questions or support you may need during your stay.

In addition, we will provide you with a 24 hour emergency contact number before you depart, so that you can contact one of our UK staff at any time should you need to.

Local Orientation
Once you have been met and picked up from the airport, you will be taken to your accommodation to settle in. On your first full day, your coordinators will guide you through the project/language school and help to answer any questions you may have in your orientation.

Your orientation will cover:

Accommodation and Meals
During your stay, you will be accommodated with a host family from Matapalo village. At the home-stay, you will have a private room, with access to the shared bathroom and kitchen etc. Although the houses are relatively comfortable and the families are from the local middleclass, please be aware that living conditions can be lower than the UK and Costa Rica is a developing country.

During the low season for the turtle project, it is possible for you to stay at the volunteer house instead.

All meals each day are included (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and are provided by the host family. They will be made in the local style, with local ingredients. If you have any special dietary needs, these can be catered for.

School Holidays
The main school year runs from mid-February to mid-December. Outside this period, the schools are closed for school holidays. There are also a number of other public holidays during the year, including religious festivals where everything normally shuts down. These include:

In October, teachers of primary and secondary schools have a week of training activities and conferences. Attendance is not mandatory, but most of the teachers participate, so schools close down. This week can vary each year, so please check with a Real Travel Adviser for details.

Equipment Donations
This sports volunteer project requires donations each year for sustainable development. The school does not have the resources to purchase new equipment, so it relies on volunteers to supply sports materials for their lesson plans and coaching clinics. Although your project fee does include a donation to the project, all volunteers are encouraged to bring with them any further equipment that may benefit the programme.

This can include:

This is not compulsory and your donation, if you make one, does not have to be brand new.

For further information or to secure your place on this programme, please call the Latin America Team today on 01892 516 164, or email our Latin America Programme Manager at matt.fenton@realgap.co.uk