Three years after the devastating earthquake that flattened more than seventy percent of the town, many people in Pisco are still living in makeshift houses with no power or water supply. They desperately need help to rebuild their homes and their lives.

If they are lucky they are given a grant from the government to spend on building supplies, however the money is often not enough to employ labourers as well. Others are not eligible for grants and need to somehow find a way to raise the necessary funds as well as feed their families, which is often an impossible task.

Volunteers from Pisco Sin Fronteras donate their time to these families with the aim of allowing them to improve their living conditions and to feel proud and positive about their town once more.

The work done by volunteers at Pisco Sin Fronteras is invaluable to the people whose lives were shattered by the earthquake. Every volunteer who walks through the front gates is making a difference, whether they stay for one week or six months. Every job is incredibly important.

There are many different projects to donate your time to at Pisco Sin Fronteras. You can build walls, roofs and entire houses or sew puppets for children to play with. You can teach English or pour concrete. You can make furniture or assist the teacher at the local school/childcare centre. You can cook dinner for the hungry volunteers or dig trenches.

Digging a trench is back-breaking work and not much fun, but it is the initial task for most construction projects. The job involves digging in rocky, dry soil that can often be very tough to break through. It's hot and sweaty work but incredibly important.

Wood collection is a weekly job at PSF. Aceros Arequipa is a very large steel factory that has been donating wood to PSF every week for the last 11 months. The job involves walking through the factory to the area where they store wooden pallets and other assorted pieces of wood, choosing usable pieces and loading them onto a truck. The factory supplies a truck for us to fill and drives it back to the wood yard across the road from the PSF headquarters where it is then unloaded and organised.

Wood collection is vital to the success of the organisation. The wood from Aceros Arequipa is used for many things by the PSF volunteers. Some of the wood is put aside to use when building modular homes for families in need. Much of it is taken to PSF HQ and used to build chairs, tables and beds and the furniture means everything to the families and schools who receive it. Some of the wood is put aside and donated to people in the community every few weeks in the form of a 'free wood day'.

El Molino is one of the poorest areas in Pisco and PSF is working hard to improve conditions for the people living there. Children are able to spend the morning at the school/childcare centre where volunteers play with them and help them to learn. By providing the children with somewhere to go every day makes them happy, keeps them safe, and stops them from roaming the streets.

Organising a special event or camping trip helps to maintain the positivity and enthusiasm of the volunteers. These events provide the volunteers with a way to let off some steam and develop friendships which lead to a stronger sense of community within the organisation. People come and go every day at PSF but there is still an amazing sense of camaraderie within the group. There is always someone willing to show a newbie where something belongs or demonstrate how to use a tool and on weekends there are plenty of people willing to go out on the town and have some fun. All of these things help to make PSF such an amazing place to be.

Helping a family to build or improve their home is one of the most rewarding experiences for the volunteers and is obviously a job of great importance. Some projects involve pouring concrete foundations, assisting to build brick or wooden houses, repairing or extending existing buildings or helping to build a home from beginning to end. Improving the living conditions for the people of Pisco is the reason PSF exists and why so many volunteers from all over the world walk through the gates every week.

Pisco Sin Fronteras is such a unique and special organisation. The volunteers ask for nothing in return from the people whose lives are changed by their work. They give their time, their energy and their sweat for up to nine hours a day, six days a week in the hope that the community of Pisco can rise from the rubble. There is no job too small and no task too insignificant and everybody who volunteers with Pisco Sin Fronteras is well aware of that fact. I know that every day I spend here is incredibly important no matter what job I choose to do, and it feels fantastic to be helping people who are less fortunate than me.