Voluntario Global is an organisation founded in 2006 by founders Valeria and Armin, dedicated to uplifting local communities across the large city of Buenos Aires. Whilst I was able to make an impact, I believe that the impact this volunteering placement has had on me has influenced my life in a permanent way. 

I was moved from the beginning by the kindness that was shown to me from the minute I stepped into the country. It was the first time that I was in a community where sharing with and supporting others was the greatest priority. I think that this is where the philosophy behind Voluntario Global stemmed from; that the most important aspect of the volunteering placement was to learn from each other and take things back to our own lives that we couldn’t have before. My official volunteering placement was with a school in a nearby town that offered free, extracurricular English classes across multiple ages and levels, but as I was volunteering with @Hazel I occasionally joined her project at the community centre as I wanted to get as much out of the experience as possible and meet new people. The school’s mission was to increase opportunities available for young people to offer more possibilities for their future. The community centre aimed to educate the community about agroecology, encourage activism and build a positive local network.

The first week was all about settling in and meeting who we would be volunteering with. It was interesting to experience stormy winter weather throughout this week and see the impact it had on the local projects. Buenos Aires is a huge city so commuting between places for work or school depended heavily on infrastructure; this meant that when the weather was stormy, as it was for the first week, some classes would be cancelled as no one would be able to travel to the school. With the help of our coordinator, Luca, I got to grips with public transport during this week also. When there were classes, I needed to get to grips with leading lessons quickly, which involved being engaging and also sharing a lot of my experiences at home to build rapport (trying to make Portsmouth sound interesting is a heroic challenge). At the community centre, we were shown the market and I met the other volunteers. The market is small and provides locals with products that are agroecological, a term that encompasses sustainable farming and ethical payment to producers. Although we could still volunteer only speaking English, there was a language barrier which eventually softened as the other volunteers got to know us and we figured out how to communicate well. 

In the next couple of weeks, I led more classes in the school and got to know the teachers more. Classes ranged in content according to level and I was able to help with more colloquial language. I also visited the health centre with Hazel where we met lots of new people from the area across a range of ages. They were curious as to why we chose to volunteer in Argentina and we asked each other lots about our lives where we live. It was so nice to meet them; they reminded me a lot of my family back home. At the end of week 2, we helped out at the community centre and learned new gardening and cooking skills. It felt rewarding to put effort into something that everyone could benefit from. The greens grown at the centre would be used for educational classes, to feed the volunteers and for distribution across different areas in the town.

There were so many moments at the school that were out of the ordinary. To teach me about recent Argentinian celebrity drama, a couple of students created a presentation in English for me. They were the same age as me and also showed me the famous Ricolletta cemetery in the city centre and the design University. At the end of my time at the school, I presented on English history and talked about Horrible Histories with the students! It was therefore really fun to make friendships beyond my official post. Furthermore, I’ve made lifelong friendships with the teachers. We would often spend our free time together. Another volunteer from the community centre even invited Hazel and I to a birthday party which was amazing. It was so exciting to be welcomed fully into the community. Beyond my volunteering post, it was amazing to see the hospitality in this country and I hope I can take this back with me and inform everything I do.

This LiA has developed me as a leader because it’s presented examples of leadership in the everyday. Everyone can lead each other and collaborate together to make things work, and everyone has an equal role to play; different volunteers step up according to their skillset and everyone shares. I hope that in any leadership position I secure in the future I can make those I lead feel as comfortable, welcome and heard as I felt. I also want to instil a culture of sharing and collaborating, building on each other's strengths and encouraging individuals to pass this on where they can in their daily lives.

The placement was a success as students I taught left with more knowledge of English culture and improved English skills in comparison to when I started. I think what makes it a greater success, and the teachers would agree, is the friendships that were created and for the students to be visited by a native English speaker (who they liked - I hope!); this was significant as there aren’t a lot in Argentina. It also reinvigorated my appreciation of education as this is something that can be taken for granted in the UK. As was the wish of Voluntario Global, I’ve been impacted by the cultural exchange and my aim from this experience is to identify areas in my life at home and throughout my career that can be improved with the lessons I learned about community from Voluntario Global. VG, it was an amazing experience I will never forget - THANKYOU!