IPSL: Guatemala - Ecology, Culture and Justice

Financial Aid is available for eligible students. IPSL also accepts AmeriCorps Segal Education awards.

Join IPSL on the shores of spectacular Lake Atitlán living and working alongside indigenous Mayan people. The IPSL Guatemala experience can be created as a customized graduate, undergraduate, gap year, volunteer, or service learning program. The choice is yours!

This unique, comparative, on-the-go experience consists of daily academic learning, cultural excursions, and service in the community. Explore Guatemala while engaging with the foods and cultures, the agricultural economy, as well as the human, animal, and environmental health of this diverse country. Meet and interact with farmers, women-led permaculture cooperatives, food justice NGOs, sustainable cocoa and coffee growers, and more. Advance your academic and professional knowledge and achieve any required shadowing, practicum or volunteer hours. This unique program is as flexible as they come!

Create a program that immerses you in the culture and deepens your understanding of Guatemalan societies in a way that goes beyond that experienced in traditional study abroad programs.

Courses include:
• Spanish Language
• Guatemala 'One-Health' Ecology. Culture' Justice. 
• Applications of Mayan Cosmology in Contemporary Health Systems
• Intro to COSA (Community Organizing and Social Activism)
• Independent Study
• Advocacy Research in the field

Volunteer opportunities may include:
• Organic and Permaculture Farm Non-profits
• Women's Traditional Agriculture Cooperative     
• Human Rights Organizations
• Women's Traditional Agriculture Cooperative     
• Food Security and Food Justice non-profits
• Marine Turtle Conservation/Rescue Organization     
• Direct and Fair Trade Coffee Cooperatives

Accommodations are on Working Farms, in Community Centers and/or Homestays with locals.

Customize your Program with Excursions, Tours & Career Expanding Options:
• Graffiti walking tour in Guatemala City
• Workshops and volunteer on cocoa or coffee farms
• Cooking classes with locals
• Sunrise hike over La Nariz Mountain/Lake Atitlán
• Textile and natural dye workshops at a women's cooperative
• Beekeeping tour and workshop with local beekeepers

IPSL is the founder of Service-Learning. They invest over 83% of our revenues directly back into the communities where they serve.