The Oaxaca Learning Center: Stay, Volunteer and/or Learn English for Free


 

Visit or stay at The Oaxaca Learning Center if you want to connect with the local community and a community of volunteers from throughout the world. Many patrons return to the bed and breakfast year after year and often stay for months at a time either volunteering or just enjoying the bed and breakfast.

You can choose if you want to take part in the volunteer opportunities or just soak in the local culture.

Welcome to The Oaxaca Learning Center. This tutoring / bed and breakfast facility places you smack dab in the center of the local culture.  The Oaxaca Learning Center (TOLC) features an open-air courtyard surrounded by bed and breakfast rooms, as well as classrooms. Upstairs you can find an entire apartment to rent.

The Oaxaca Learning Center is first of all a volunteer organization. It is also a bread & breakfast.

If you are tentative about traveling to a foreign country because you’re worried about being lonely and afraid, book a room at the Oaxaca Learning Center where you will be instantly engulfed in a caring community of English and Spanish speaking friends. Consider volunteering to further immerse yourself in the local culture.

You will have the opportunity to interact with students and the bi-lingual staff of the Oaxaca Learning Center (TOLC) offering a truly local experience.

The TOLC, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization was founded in 2005 by Gary Titus, a retired community organizer from San Francisco, USA  and Jaasiel Quero, a public school teacher in Oaxaca.

The purpose is to provide much-needed academic tutoring and social service support to low-income students from underserved urban neighborhoods and indigenous rural villages throughout the state of Oaxaca.

The TOLC serves students 14 years old and up.

For many, the TOLC provides the only access to a quality education.

The schooling situation in Oaxaca is dismal. Teaching positions are inherited and can be bought and sold.

With the teacher’s income guaranteed by the government, some teachers take advantage of the situation to work sporadically or not at all. Whether you show up to work or not, public school employment is a lucrative business. As you can imagine, this system produces many educators who lack skills or just don't bother coming to work.

For the students stuck with an absent and/or unqualified teacher, the OLTC provides their only access to a quality education.

With TOLC support, these students can complete high school and often proceed to university for professional careers.

Many graduates choose to stay and work as center staff. Presently the Leadership Team and ten tutors provide 600 hours of tutoring per month. And you can be a part of this. Take a look at the available volunteer activities. 

Volunteer information from the website

Whether you are in Oaxaca for a short or long visit, the Center will be happy to put you to work! We always need tutors in English, or you can sign up for an intercambio–where you can practice your Spanish while the students practice their English. For long-term stays, TOLC can put together a small class for English instruction.

Volunteers design workshops to focus on the needs of the students and staff. ANY EXPERTISE IS APPRECIATED. Here are some examples of past classes

  • stress management
  • leadership training
  • writing and speaking for public presentations
  • essay writing
  • sexual and reproductive health

How to support the charity

  1. Volunteer
  2. Book a hotel room or apartment at the center’s bed and breakfast
  3. Donate through the tax deductible charitable organization

We found out about The Oaxaca Learning Center through a friend from our church who visits Oaxaca often.

We wanted to get heavily involved with the community so sent an email to inquire about teaching a summer school English class. We’d been exchanging emails with the staff in preparation for our arrival in Oaxaca. In a couple weeks, we’ll be teaching an English class to students who otherwise would have no means to an English education. 

Perhaps you are not prepared to teach an entire course, but consider participating in an intercambio.

What is an intercambio and who does it benefit?

The word “intercambio” translates to interchange. An intercambio is a language exchange that benefits both the English speakers and Spanish speakers. The purpose is for everyone to learn a new language.

Before we came to Oaxaca, we did not know about the intercambios, but, oh what a benefit, especially for the budget traveler! One of our main goals for coming to Mexico is to improve our Spanish.  Instead of paying for a class, participating in an intercambio allows us to help out a student and at the same time help ourselves.

Intercambios are an economical way to learn Spanish.

Bed and Breakfast accommodations at the Oaxaca Learning Center

We’ve met many people who stay at the bed and breakfast year after year, welcomed by familiar faces. We would have liked to stay here but by the time we found out about the bed and breakfast, all the rooms were full. The rooms look comfortable and cozy.

Here is a description from the website:

Bed and Breakfast accommodations at the Oaxaca Learning Center are located in the historic town center—in easy walking distance to the main square, known as the Zócalo, in beautiful Oaxaca. Our intimate and friendly B&B is part of a complex that includes the Learning Center. One hundred percent of the income and donations from visitors to the B&B support the programs and operation of the Oaxaca Learning Center.

English and Spanish are spoken fluently in the Center, and our goal is to make your stay comfortable and meaningful by providing personal attention to your needs in a friendly atmosphere. Our helpful staff can arrange vegetarian cooking classes, individual or small group Spanish instruction, or point you in the right direction for sightseeing and cultural activities.

If you are not able to get a room here, and you want to experience the local culture, we recommend two other places we’ve stayed: Hotel Las Mariposas and Meson de Penasco. These places provide varying degrees of interaction with local people. Click on the names to read more about them.

Don’t pay for a language class. Volunteer at TOLC and learn Spanish for free!

We are very excited to be able to learn Spanish and at the same time help Oaxacan children to learn English, especially since we came to Mexico to improve our Spanish.

An alternative is the enroll in a Oaxacan language school for foreigners learning Spanish.

In fact, one of our relatives spent 2 weeks attending a Oaxaca language school. They even had the option of living with a local family to expand their language. If a language school is the route you want to go, you have lots of options in Oaxaca and will be helping the local economy.

If you prefer a direct involvement in a child's future join an intercambio.

Now that you know how easy it is to make a difference in somebody’s life, will you consider volunteering at The Oaxaca Learning Center even for a few days?

Today we meet our intercambio partners who are two college girls named Beatriz and Teresa. Both are students studying to become English teachers. They are as eager to learn English as we are to learn Spanish so the four of us decide to meet every weekday for 2 hours.

Normally the sessions are much less frequent, but we have the time and their futures depend on advancing their English skills.

Donate through the tax deductible charitable organization

The Friends of the Oaxaca Learning Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, chartered in the state of Maine, and eligible for tax-deductible donations since May 2011.  The Oaxaca Learning Center is able to provide its services to the youths of Oaxaca thanks to the support of generous people, religious groups, businesses, charitable organizations and others from around the world. 

To facilitate international donations, the Center has established three supporting structures to allow donors to give in a way that maximizes the value of the donation to both the center and the donor with an eye to safety, legality, and the donations tax-deductible status.

  • ​Canadian donors should use CANFRO to make donations
  • Donors from the USA and all other nations should use FOLC.
  • Mexican donors should use IIAC to make donations.

More volunteer opportunities exist at the Oaxaca Lending Library and Esperanza de Infantile.

Click here to access The Oaxaca Learning Center website

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