Search

Home » About AMIGOS

AMIGOS Partner Agencies

AMIGOS’ service projects in Latin America are conducted in close collaboration with international, national, and local partner agencies. AMIGOS works with these integral partners to jointly determine the focus, location and size of projects, taking into consideration local community interests, safety and the potential for successful outcomes. These alliances are critical to the success, sustainability and usefulness of our programs, and provide a strong alliance to help support the efforts of our Volunteers.
 
Read about our Partner Agencies in each country: 
Watch this video about AMIGOS Partner Agencies:

Dominican Republic

Plan República Dominicana
AMIGOS partners with the Dominican branch of Plan International, a development organization with global reach. Plan International works in 45 developing countries on health, education, livelihood, housing, water and sanitation projects and cross-cultural learning. Plan’s vision is of a world in which all children realize their full potential in societies that respect people’s rights and dignity. It works with a participatory approach. Children, their families and their communities are involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of all of Plan’s programs. Child sponsorship is the foundation of the organization—there are about one million sponsors in 15 donor countries helping over one million children all over the world, together with their families and communities.
 
Plan has been working in the Dominican Republic since 1987, helping poor children to access their rights to education, health, protection and sustainable livelihoods. Our work focuses on the South West of the country, helping children and their families in 148 communities to empower themselves to lead their own development.
 
Partners Logo
Partners of the Americas is an international network that promotes social and economic development in the Americas through leadership, voluntary service, and development programs.  Partners’ mission is to connect individuals, volunteers, institutions, businesses, and communities to serve and to change lives through lasting partnerships.  Founded in 1964, Partners is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization with international offices in Washington, DC.  Today, Partners has evolved into 100 volunteer chapters linked in partnerships. Chapters in U.S. states form partnerships with chapters in countries or states in Latin America and the Caribbean.
 
Partners opened a chapter in the Dominican Republic in 2010 where they run a successful A Ganar Program focused on utilizing baseball, soccer and other team sports to help youth in the Dominican Republic, ages 16-24, find jobs, learn entrepreneurial skills, or re-enter the formal education system. Partners also creates Service Learning opportunities for young people in Jarabacoa to help them gain social and entrepreneurial skills.
 
Children International is a nonprofit humanitarian organization dedicated to improving the lives of impoverished children, their families, and their communities.  Children has been working in the Dominican Republic since 1979, focusing on health, education, life skills, and youth and community leadership.  Their programs currently benefit 31,936 children in Santo Domingo, Bayaguana, Santiago, and Mao, Valverde.  AMIGOS is collaborating with Children in several communities in Santiago and Mao this summer, promoting volunteerism, youth leadership, health, and environmental awareness. 
 
 

Costa Rica

Casa de la Juventud

Casade la Juventud is a non-profit organization that provides opportunities for Costa Rican youth to finish secondary education, learn technical skills, play on organized sports teams, and develop youth groups.  CASA, although small in size, has developed quite a remarkable reputation within the country for the work it does in the national parks and with local youth. They have connections with MINAE (Ministry of Environment and Energy), the Ministry of Education, and CRUSA (a US/Costa Rican foundation). 

 

Ecuador

Plan started working in Ecuador in 1963, in the slum areas of the City of Guayaquil. Today, more than 500,000 children participate in our projects across Azuay, Bolívar, Cañar, Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, Guayas, Loja, Los Ríos, Manabí, Pichincha and Santa Elena provinces.

[Plan] works in over 1,000 communities, promoting rights and a decent life for children and their families.

[Their] main target groups are children and teenagers who live in situations of inequality and vulnerability, and whose rights are infringed, as well as workers with disabilities and other groups in need of special protection.

Grupo Social FEPP
The Ecuadorian Populorum Progressio Fund (FEPP) is a private foundation in the social, nonprofit, ecumenical arena, sponsored by the Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference. FEPP was created with the intention to assist the most disadvantaged population in the context of a common development of mankind. (*AMIGOS does not carry out any religiously affiliated projects with FEPP).
 

Mexico

Puente a la Salud Comunitaria is a non-governmental agency that seeks to empower the people of rural Oaxaca to improve their own health without extensive reliance on outside agencies. Their programs focus on sustainability through the promotion, planting, and consumption of amaranth facilitating an environment in which the communities are able to better their own health. Amaranth is a grain native to Oaxaca that contains high protein, calcium and folic acid, grows inexpensively and easily, and can be incorporated into many typical local dishes.

Servicios de Salud de Oaxaca: Providing quality health services, promoting self-care of the individual and the community through rational management, fair and transparent management of resources, with the explicit goal of reducing the high number of the Oaxacan population that does not have health insurance.

Nicaragua

Plan has worked in Nicaragua since 1994, helping poor children to access their rights to health, education, protection and economic security. 70% of Nicaragua's population lives in poverty.

[Plan] promotes children's rights and work to ensure that children, families and communities actively participate in their own development - from identifying problems to implementing solutions.

Today, more than 30,000 children in 6 of the 15 departments of Nicaragua participate in [their] programmes.

CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. CARE places special focus on working alongside poor women, because equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty. Women are at the heart of CARE's community-based efforts to improve basic education, prevent the spread of HIV, increase access to clean water and sanitation, expand economic opportunity and protect natural resources. CARE also delivers emergency aid to survivors of war and natural disasters, and helps people rebuild their lives.
 
CARE began operations in Nicaragua in 1966 and has continued working there, uninterrupted, despite political turmoil and civil war. During the 1960s and 1970s CARE Nicaragua worked mostly in education and primary health care. During the 1980s CARE expanded its focus to include safe pesticide use, agricultural development and water-system construction. Since 1990, CARE has embarked on a far-reaching rural water, sanitation and preventive health program, and has expanded its activities in sustainable agriculture and natural resources management.
 
Watch this interview with a CARE representative in Nicaragua:

Panama

Ministerio de Salud

MINSA is the governmental entity responsible for ensuring the health of all Panamanians. Their mission is to promote integrated action with other national and international, in order to achieve sustainable progress in the quality of life of the people of Panama. The MINSA is a rector of health and part of its mission to promote integrated action with other national and international organizations, in order to achieve sustainable progress in quality of life of the Panamanian people.
 
The Ministry of Social Development is the lead agency for social policy of the Panamanian State. This institution engages in social investment to strengthen the skills and capabilities of the country's human capital to achieve sustainable national development. Additionally, MIDES works to provide a framework for social protection and regulates the quality of services nationwide, to both prevent social exclusion and offset the consequences.
 
The vision of ANA M is to build a Panamanian society that is characterized by a healthy environment and a culture of sustainability, contributing to a higher level of human development. They lead, facilitate, monitor and manage environmental management for sustainable development. This is done this in order to preserve, protect, restore, recover and improve the environment and natural resources base by promoting environmental competitive advantages of Panama.
 
Panamá Verde is a non-governmental organization that works to form youth groups in small communities to plan and execute environmental and health related projects. Panamá Verde’s three-part mission is almost identical to that of AMIGOS—environmental health, service work in impoverished communities and youth leadership. Panamá Verde supports AMIGOS Volunteers with training and contributes to the sustainability of AMIGOS projects by continuing to work with youth groups after Volunteers depart.
 

Paraguay

SENASA (Servicio Nacional de Saneamiento Ambientalor National Service of Environmental Sanitation) is a governmental branch of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in Paraguay. SENASA primarily sponsors potable water projects in the rural areas of the country but also dedicates its efforts to community sanitation and waste management projects.
 
AMIGOS partners with SENASA on community sanitation efforts through facilitating latrine construction, health and sanitation education and the development of local youth leaders. SENASA provides funcionarios, or technical experts, from the region to support and monitor the projects throughout the summer.
 
Plan has been operating in Paraguay since 1994, helping poor children and their communities to access their rights to education, health, protection, food security and sustainable livelihoods. Over the last 12 years, Plan Paraguay has continued to grow. It currently serves over 23,000 children within 400+ communities in four Paraguayan departments: San Lorenzo, Caaguazú, San Pedro and Guairá. 
 
Fundación Paraguaya's mission is to promote the development of micro and small enterprises, as well as low-income individuals, through the creation, growth and strengthening of sustainable microfinance services. Fundación Paraguaya financially supports Junior Achievement Paraguay, enabling it to partner with AMIGOS.
 
Junior Achievement International began in the U.S. in 1919 and has since grown to be the world’s oldest, largest and fastest-growing non-profit economic education organization. Junior Achievement Paraguay began in 1996 and has since served over 45,000 children and adolescents, winning numerous international awards for their efforts.
 
Well-matched in our commitment to youth empowerment, Junior Achievement Paraguay and AMIGOS forged a pilot partnership for the first time in 2003 when five youth from the organization collaborated with AMIGOS Volunteers on community programs for 3 days. Due to the overwhelming success, this partnership has grown to include more youth for an extended period of 10 days.
 

Peru

Ministry of Health (MINSA) – Peru:  AMIGOS works with the Department of Promoción de la Salud, a branch of MINSA, which encourages community participation and skills development in the delivery health services. 

Cecade Logo

CECADE the Training Center for Development, provides vocational training for community members in the region of Yaurisque in the Department of Cusco, Peru. Areas of vocational training include carpentry, sustainable agriculture, crafts and small enterprise development. CECADE also provides training and support for teachers in elementary and high schools throughout the region.

University of Cusco, Peru - Hatun Ñan: The Hatun Ñan Program provides academic support for students of indigenous origin (Quechua, Aymara, and Amazónico) studying in the San Antonio Abad National University of Cusco. Students in this program are prepared to support AMIGOS volunteers in leading extracurricular activities and welcome volunteers to their campus for a shadow day.

Plan has been working in Peru since 1994, opening up and supporting the access of poor and marginalised children to basic rights like health, education, participation and sustainable livelihoods.

[Plan's] work benefits more than half a million people in more than 300 communities.

[They] work with children, and their communities and local autorities to identify central issues and produce positive change.

 

 

Ayuda en Acción PRODIA is an implementing agency of Ayuda en Accion. Ayuda en Accion is an independent, apolitical, Spanish development organization that works to create structural change that contributes to the eradication of poverty. Ayuda en Accion has was founded in 1981 and curently works in 22 different countries around the world, focus on the following themes: human rights, gender equality,  and promotion of networks of solidarity which fund all the programs in the field. Even though PRODIA has been working in the region of Cajamarca for only one year, the respect they have garned in the region is as visible as the impact of their "Healthy Households" project which will be the main point of collaboration with AMIGOS Volunteers. 

United States

 

Ashoka’s Youth Venture Bay Area

 

Youth Venture San Francisco Bay Area transforms young dreamers into changemakers. They inspire and invest in teams of young people to start and lead their own social ventures and they are a part of a powerful global network of changemakers. 

Amigos de las Américas

5618 Star Lane | Houston, Texas 77057
(713) 782-5290 | (800) 231-7796
F: (713) 782-9267 | info@amigoslink.org

Amigos de las Américas (AMIGOS) hosts programs for young adults to volunteer abroad. AMIGOS' volunteer opportunities focus on youth leadership training and community development in Latin America.

AMIGOS is a proud partner with United Airlines. Booking your travel through the logo above directly supports AMIGOS!