Our Partners and Friends

We can't do everything ourselves. Below are a list of our partners and friends that help make Voluntraveler work:

Cecilia Barreto
President, PaM Peru

Cecilia lives in Lima with her husband and grandchildren. She would likely be the one to welcome you on your arrival in Lima, and can answer any questions you have about volunteering. She can also tell you about how she started PaM Peru, and share with you some of her motivations and dreams for the community of Mancora. She usually takes care of arranging for buses/planes from Lima to Mancora, and will likely escort you from your hotel to the bus station or airport for your connection to Mancora.

Gaby Gonzales
Volunteer Coordinator in Mancora

She manages all the local staff and arranges our volunteer placements in the various community programs. She is well-known and well-liked by many key stakeholders in the community, and she extremely knowledgeable about the local culture and context. She was also one of the the original founders of PaM Peru, and she has relocated to Mancora from Lima to help the community. She is a full-time PaM staff member.

Profesora Elena Balladares
Director, Micaela Bastidas school

Profesor Jose Rolando Guerrero Lama
Director, Alberto Pallete school

Profesor Manual Merrino
Director, Tupac Amaru school

Veronika Roncal President, Mancora Youth Association (Asociacion de Jovenes de Mancora)

Sra. Maria Cordova
President, Centre for Special Needs Children (Centro de Niños Especiales)

Doctor Angel Cruz Barreto
Chief Doctor, Mancora Health Center

Obstetrician Pilar Cevallos
Medical coordinator, Barrancos and Fernandez campesino regions

Doctor Juan Pablo Medina
Mentor for PaM medical volunteers

The Voluntraveler Team

Josh Hehner

Program Development

Josh has worked as a Paramedic in Toronto since 2002, and is one of the founders of Para el Mundo (PaM). He has served as Director of Community Medicine Programs since 2005 and lived in Peru for 14 months to establish a medical clinic and teach courses in emergency medicine, first aid, and CPR to community health workers and high-school students. Josh regularly travels back to Peru to oversee PaM's ongoing work. Josh has also worked as a medical advisor for humanitarian de-mining agency programmes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Vietnam, Laos, Iraq and the Gaza Strip, training medical workers in emergency trauma response for teams tasked with cleaning up unexploded bombs and landmines in current and former war zones.

Sean Jacquemain

Volunteer Coordinator

Sean Jacquemain is a co-founder of Para el Mundo (PaM) Canada and has traveled extensively in Central and South America. With PaM, Sean taught English, worked with children with special needs, taught self defense classes for women and worked as a volunteer coordinator. Sean is a trained photojournalist and has worked as a travel photographer for many years. He took nearly all of the photos on the PaM and Voluntraveler websites. For more information on Sean and his work visit: www.seanjacquemain.com

Jason Kucherawy

Marketing and Online Media
Jason Kucherawy worked in the educational travel industry for more than a decade and helped found and build Impact Educational Tours. He spent a year in Japan teaching English, and six months in Afghanistan working with the Canadian Forces as a travel coordinator. Jason has a B.A. in cultural anthropology (York University '99), and has traveled throughout the USA and Canada, parts of Europe and South America eager to learn more about the world, the environment and how humanity fits into the big picture. Jason performs improv regularly at the Bad Dog Theatre in Toronto. For more information about Jason visit: www.jasonkucherawy.com

Danielle Lafond

Charity Liaison
Danielle Lafond (B.S.W.) helped found the charity Para el Mundo (PaM) Canada in 2004. In 2005, she moved to Mancora for a year to help start the programs in the community, and she continues to work with local staff on project planning from her home in Toronto. Danielle is a graduate student in the Sociology of Education (University of Toronto), and she is a percussionist and performer with Toronto's Samba Squad (www.sambasquad.com). Danielle has traveled extensively throughout North America, Central and South America, Africa and the Carribbean.