STAY AWAY FROM ILP!!!!!!! ILP is an awful program. In the information meetings and training they paint a lovely picture of a good, fun, and exciting adventure. THIS IS A LIE! First of all, they target good mormon kids that will volunteer for free, then they make bank off of the program fee that the volunteers are required to pay, as well as the monthly dues that the parents owe the school in order to have their children attend for english lessons. That's right, they are a BUSINESS! not a volunteer program. They absolutely do not care about the safety of their volunteers. When I was working in Mexico for them, they literally dropped me off at 1 am at someone's home, whom I had never met or knew anything about and left me to fend for myself. They did not supply transportation for me to get from my house to the school, I had to walk every day 3 times a day, over 3 miles!! I was almost kidnapped on one of those occasions of walking to the school- broad daylight mind you, while the other 4 volunteers and been robbed, home broken into, attacked less then a block away from the school, and what does the person, Casey, that is in charge of the program say? "Well, it's part of the foreign experience." Heck no. I will not take that, and you shouldn't either. Right now, my friend is literally trapped in Mexico because she cannot afford the "troublemaker fee" of $1500 to go home because her debit card was stolen and ILP knows that, and they don't want her to go home because if she does then the program will shut down because it can't run off of two volunteer teachers, so they have her trapped. Please please please do not volunteer for this business. It will only end up in a sad story and you will be out a lot of money and most likely end up hurt- emotionally and quite possibly physically. This was an expensive mistake that I made, but I do not want others to go out and fall in the same hole I did. I wanted to make a difference through this program and look! here I am! I AM making a difference, I make others aware of the corrupt, leeches that the ILP business is. Let me know if there is any other way for me to get the word out to others. Thanks so much!
