History

Amigos has been a pillar of the local community, providing a crossroads where visitors to Cuzco and locals can meet. That has meant a number of different things such as promoting interaction among locals and visitors as well as our youth program, which supports underprivileged locals from Cusco. We began with a skeleton crew and a Youth Foundation to support local children suffering in silent poverty, and now we have become a thriving school. In other words, Amigos was about symbiosis: two distinct groups of people, locals and visitors, helping and growing together. Visitors learn Spanish and, as a result, support the local community in Cusco.  Amigos has grown from this humble dream into an established Cuzco learning institution, a world-renowned Spanish school, and is often a highlight for many travelers spending time in Cuzco. While we no longer operate the original foundation and Youth Program to the same degree, Amigos has not forgotten our roots. We strive to continue supporting the local community while delivering world-class education in the casual, friendly, and welcoming setting of our school.

When we opened our doors, all we had was a few teachers, one cook, sixteen local children, barely enough money to feed and to educate our children, and no guarantee of a future. But we had our faith, we had our dedication, and we had our dream. And so, against the odds, Amigos was born. We began with an initial donation from a private company in The Netherlands, but it was only sufficient to cover the initial months of the Youth Program. Our first foreign students were two people from Germany, Simon and Anne in April 2002. On the first day of class, they were very enthusiastic and excited about their lessons. They felt very happy that their Spanish lessons were supporting (via our local youth program) the education and nutrition of our sixteen local boys and girls. After six weeks of intensive Spanish lessons, living with a Peruvian family and sharing the school with our children, they left with a good working knowledge of Spanish to continue on their Latin American travels. When they left, they said something unforgettable: "Amigos es realmente Amigos" ("Amigos truly is Amigos"). After a while, the number of students started growing little by little. Since 2006, The Amigos Spanish School itself has financed 100% of the youth program, and we are very proud of this achievement. Our foreign students were not only happy with the noticeable improvement of their Spanish, they were also very satisfied that they were helping the community in Cusco.

In 2012 it was decided to have only a small group of kids to take care of, without the stringent and compromising demands of the Youth Project. Jesus (the founder) was in direct charge of this group. In 2013 our school partnered with the Swiss Eurocentres Foundation, a worldwide network of language schools, and with a number of universities in the US and organizations in Europe.  In 2018 our school founder moved to the United States to pursue a master’s program at the University of Oregon. After a few years, he returned to Cusco and is currently working at Amigos as well as creating sociolinguistic projects related to Quechua, Spanish and English language that takes place in the linguistic environment of Cusco.

Today, we have an enviable reputation in Cusco, and people the world over have spread many good sentiments about Amigos.