Financial Officer: Rachel Niederman (rnieder@stanford.edu)
Amount Petitioned: $11,120
Full Budget

What is the mission and purpose of your student group?

Volunteers in Latin America is a student group commited to
raising awareness about development issues in Latin America and
the resulting problem of street children.  Through on-campus
lectures, slide-shows, and cultural events, Stanford students
become more aware of children's rights issues in general (health,
education, juvenile justice) in the context of socioeconomic
rights in Latin America.  In addition, we provide a financially
feasible, cross-cultural, hands-on volunteer experience for
Stanford students to work with street children in Quito, Ecuador
during the summer.

Why are you requesting Special Fees?

In order to effectively teach the Stanford community about the
ramifications of rapid urbanization and bottom-heavy population
distribution,  as well as international social responsibility,

What are the three largest line item requests in your budget and why?

The largest budget request is for transportation to and from
Quito, Ecuador.  For these plane tickets, minus the amount we
will recieve from The Stanford Fund, we are requesting $6,050.

The second largest budget item we are requesting is daily living
expenses in Quito.  Each student volunteer will stay with a host
family, which includes 2 meals a day, and will eat their third
meal at the shelter.   The two supervisors will live on a stipend
of $100/month.  This total group living expense, detailed in the
budget, amounts to $3,122.20.

The third largest is the material we use for volunteer
preparation and training.  We will meet weekly during the Spring
and each volunteer must read a comprehensive collection of books
and articles about street children and volunteering abroad.  As
an incentive and reward for this extra no-credit class (as well
as an oportunity to bond) we also offer these volunteers
refreshments.  These material and food expenses, for eight
volunteers and two leaders over the course of 10 weeks amounts to
$1,678.40

If you applied for Special Fees last year, is there an increase in the
amount you're seeking this year?  If so, why?

There is no increase in the amount we are seeking.  We have tried
to minimize costs as much as possible during the past year, and
are also soliciting dorms for outside funding.