Who are we?

Bureau Connectie Bolivia was founded in February 2004 in La Paz, the government city of Bolivia.

The organisation has two employees:

Helen Koolschijn, 45 years old, working and living in La Paz, English and Dutch teacher, traveled a lot and has a lot of experience in all kinds of things. Helen is mostly occupied with the daily correspondence, coaching volunteers, interns and personal, staying in touch with the projects where the volunteers and interns are working, oordinating their own project Corazón Inquieto.

Jitske de Haan: 27 year old, Child psychologist, contact in the Netherlands. She did volunteerwork in 2006. She is involved with everything that is neccesary in the Netherlands.

Our goals

Our most important goal is:
‘Building a bridge between the demands of international volunteers/interns and the offers of Bolivian places to work as a volunteer or intern and to offer specialized and individual coaching with this.’

Bolivia is one of the poorest countries of South-America. There are a lot of problems in the social, economical and political areas. Although our philosophy is that the Bolivians themselves need to work for a better future, we think that cooperation from abroad, in concrete and practical support by volunteers is very welcome. Both parties will learn a lot from each other, by being in contact with people from a different culture. A good base for development is learning from each other.

Our second goal is:
‘Trying to aid the development of Bolivia, especially for specific target groups, such as children, women, disabled people and elderly.‘

Starting points

‘A successful experience for a volunteer or intern will stand or fall because of the coaching. Volunteers often feel like they are being thrown into the deep end. By the time a volunteer has finally found his strength and gets settled in, the period of working as a volunteer has often passed already. A lot of possibilities are not being used, for both the volunteers/interns as well as the organizations, due to a lack of good communication and coaching.‘

Good communication and adequate coaching are the main courses of Bureau Connectie Bolivia. The most important is that every volunteer and intern gets the possibility to share with us their specific needs, so that they will receive the coaching that they need.

The coaching that Bureau Connectie Bolivia offers is constant. Within office hours you can call for an appointment. We will try to support you whenever and wherever we can. When you get ill, we will go with you to the doctor, as well as with any other kind of problem, we will try to help you the best we can, within our possibilities. We have a mobile phone which you can reach 24 hours a day, when there is an emergency. No extra costs will be charged for this support. In this way we are trying to maintain the safety and wellbeing of our volunteers and interns as much as we can.