Colibrí Video Interviews and Updates

Quoi de neuf, indie volunteers? I have so much to write about!

Firstly, I've been on hiatus since I got back to NYC from Paris: working full-time and trying to figure out my immediate and future life plan will drive thoughts of updating a blog clear away. I can't not write about Paris though: living there for three months was an experience that changed my life. I am now hoping to go to a French university very soon, or at the very least study abroad in Paris. I fell in love with one of the most beautiful commonplace civilizations in the world - where discussion and eating is an art, where family and friends are valued more than work or money, where traveling is expected, and the list goes on. Remember that if you wish to visit Paris and you can't afford to pay for a place to stay, you can live as a writer-in-residence, or tumbleweed, in the Anglophone bookstore Shakespeare & Co.! Highly recommended, but make sure you're not looking to practice French, cause they're mostly English speaking Brits there ;)

While I enjoyed my time in Paris, I had written to you all about how anxious I was to get back to New York and work so that I could volunteer again. I was a bit restless with my life in Paris - mostly walking, eating, reading, and dancing (terrible, yes, I know) - but, my, how I had forgotten - you can volunteer anywhere! Paris is one of the richest cities in the world with a very high standard of living, but that does not mean that there are not people in need there. On my very last night, on the way to dinner with a friend in the ritzy 7ème arrondissement, I passed by a plain, small parc that held what seemed to be a celebration. A trailer was there, pulling out tables, lights were strung around it all, and lots of people were milling around. It wasn't a fancy party though, upon a second glance, and I saw that the trailer said "Les Restos du Coeur"  - restaurants of the heart. I stopped dead in my tracks and hit myself on the forehead. How amazing of an experience would it have been to get involved in something like that! I could have learned so much from the down-and-out-of-luck, just plain old working hard, or volunteering Parisians and enjoyed countless discussions. I did some research afterwards and have added some links for you all in the sidebar - so that the next time you're in Paris for an extended period of time, you will know about what you can do in your time there that will help somebody and also be an invaluable learning experience. Plus, I'm sure that the food they serve is WAY better than the food I've served in NY or Boston - it's Paris, after all ;) Il faut manger bien pour vivre bien! 

I'm back in New York now, and have been for nearly three months. Since I've been working full-time and switching my life plans almost everyday, I'm nowhere near close to finishing the video, but I've accomplished something in the meantime - a transcript of the Colibrí promotional video. For those of you who are new to this blog, I volunteered at a center for working and economically disadvantaged children in Cuzco, Peru from May to June of this year. My plan to volunteer at a community house in the more rural Chincha had fallen through, so I came to Cuzco without a plan and started asking around for meaningful and free places to volunteer. Another long-term traveller fluent in Spanish recommended Colibrí to me, and I knew from the moment I walked into the center that it was very much needed. The atmosphere was so warm and the faces there so happy - Colibrí is much more than a place for these kids to receive tutoring, to play fútbol, eat some food and get medical care. It's a second home for them, a place of safety and full of people who care for them. No matter how much people say that centers like these are a drop of water in the ocean of need out there, they are necessary because this is the most help that these children are getting right now.

I was especially impressed by the policemen who had started and continue to run the whole operation. They keep the center going with a small allowance from the Policia Nacional de Perú and donations from locals and foreigners. The promo video will be mostly interviews with them and montages of the daily scene at Colibrí.

Interview with Alcides, Director of Colibrí [translated from Spanish] 

Me: What is Colibri?

A: Colibrí is a program that works with children, specifically children who work on the streets here in the city of Cuzco, Peru.

Me: When and how did it begin?

A: Colibrí began in September 23, 1997 to aid the adolescents whom I saw working in the streets. I saw that they were in great need, working in the streets without protection and constantly in danger of being arrested or taken advantage of. Colibrí would bring some security to them.

Me: What do the children do here?

A: They come here to work on their school assignments,  or make some art and learn some English. They also come for the volunteers who always visit them.

Me: How do volunteers help?

A: Volunteers help them directly by teaching them things in their homework, and sharing with the children some of their own culture.

Me: Why is volunteering free at Colibrí?

A: Volunteering here should be free because we are not an organization that recruits volunteers and collects fees from them - we just hope that volunteers would help us with some things, and be of a useful presence to the kids here.

Me: What would you like to have at Cilobrí?

A: Oh, there is so much. We need more computer resources, chairs, hygienic services, a bathroom, running water.... Ultimately we need things that will be of use for the children.

Me: What do you ultimately hope for the children who come to Colibrí?

A: I hope that they will be changed, that they will be useful to society. We want improvement for them, a better life. I hope that they will be in a good place in the future, that they will be good people, that tomorrow they will be better off, and not participate in activities in the streets anymore. I want all of these kids to be good citizens.*

For the rest of the interviews with the policemen and volunteers, stay tuned for the Colibrí video! I'm working my darnedest, what with three college applications and all :)

My exciting update is that I am going to Cartagena, Colombia for a month in January! I have always wanted to go to Colombia, since I have met so many friendly Colombians around the world who are proud of their country and eager to have me visit. I chose the ciudad Cartagena de Indias because I have long read about this city in the fiction of Gabriel García Marquez and because it is reputedly a beautiful, romantic, and vibrant Carribbean city. Nonetheless - I do not take vacations - I go on cultural expeditions! We all know that volunteering can be an invaluable window into another culture and different daily life, so my search for a free and meaningful volunteer opportunity in or around Cartagena thus begins. I will be looking for something in the realm of education or healthcare, preferably the latter.

Finally - though this has nothing to do with volunteering abroad - I took notice of former Washington DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee's new campaign/nonprofit organization, Students First. Michelle Rhee is a leader in the education reform community, and has been celebrated as well as criticized for her rapid yet effective approach to changing the education system in Washington D.C. She resigned as Chancellor after her boss, incumbent DC mayor Adrian Fenty lost the mid-term 2010 election to the Republican candidate. Since then, she has launched her website, a Students First Facebook page and a Twitter. I have heard about Rhee's work and philosophy before, but after finding out about her nonprofit, I did some more research on her and am duly impressed. Michelle Rhee is indignant about the education most children in the United States receive and rightly so. If you are a child without money, you are a child without options, because the zoning and lottery system the US education system employs only has a few good public schools to dole out. Videos | StudentsFirst.org Before I tested into the Bronx High School of Science, I was zoned for Van Buren High School in Jamaica. I don't have any illusions about the education I would have received there, nor more importantly any about the academic atmosphere in which I would have been immersed. Rhee is an advocate for the kids without options, and demands better policies and better teachers stat. I'm with her. So please, check out her nonprofit, sign the pledge, make a donation if you can and join a local discussion group. What we're all doing here is taking baby steps that may pass by unnoticed and can be very frustrating at first, but I have no doubt that we're going to change things.

Involvement, and why I write this blog at all

I was reminded of the purpose of this blog when I read this quote from Confucius, "Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I will remember. Involve me and I will understand." These words are really applicable to everything in life. Love, education, literature, film, all the ways that humans try to communicate with each other. For me, I immediately thought of my efforts through maintaining and writing this blog. It is my sincerest desire that I will involve readers in my personal journey. I don't just want to tell stories through words and show experiences through photos. I want to involve all my readers through the common thread that I believe connects us all - humanity and a desire to lessen the sufferings of others. I want my readers to imagine themselves in other people's lives, to ask themselves difficult questions, to take the risk of traveling somewhere they have never known and to want to help people that they have never met.

That is really my motivation behind the promotional video that I am working on for Colobri. Progress is achingly slow, especially because I do not have the right software and am currently agonizing over financing for my gap year, but I hope that the finished film will involve viewers through its narrative portrayal of policemen and volunteers from all over the world. These strangers come together to support children for no other fact than that they are children, they are disadvantaged, and they, like everybody else in the world, deserve opportunities and love.

Alas, it is not yet finished. I hope that I can finish it once I am back in New York and definitely before the New Year. Thus, I must leave you all with photos of my time in Colobri and hope that that will still involve you all :) As they say in France, a bientot!

Family portrait

Maté y queque

Estaba leyendo el texto mientras ella lo copía

Lindita

Vamos a la parque! 

Mi ultimo dia... vean uds la locura? 

I love them. I left a piece of my heart in Colobri.

I am now a blogger

I admit, I avoided blogs just because of the stigma of being a {blogger} but I´m doing this because I´m excited to share my experiences as an independent volunteer!

Volunteering 
I volunteer mostly here in the States, with great organizations such as 826, as well as in university programs, but I love volunteering abroad even more. The cultural immersion aspect is immensely appealing to the anthropologist inside me. More important, however, is that I am learning about and actively addressing social problems in a parallel reality. Volunteering and traveling were meant to go together, for me at least, but there are problems in combining the two. 

The problem 

"Voluntourism" has become a major market. The incredibly rapid and comprehensive commercialization of volunteer opportunities in developing countries has placed a high price tag on volunteering. It is difficult to wade through all the bureaucracy and fees today when searching for ways to give back to a different community. Of course, these programs make volunteering relatively easy for those who can afford them, since they take care of most details and even provide touristic side trips. Yet, I believe that catering to the expectations and desires of the tourists takes something away from the volunteering. In real life, volunteering for a couple of months in another country is not going to change a whole lot. Even the Peace Corps will tell ya not to get your hopes up. That's why I am very discerning about the organizations I want to give my time to. I want to make sure that they really do need volunteers, that I am performing some important service to the community, and that the whole exchange is less about me and my money, but about the community and their voice. If I'm not going to change a lot, at least I want to be a part of some very necessary change. Some organizations that do this necessarily require volunteers to pay some fees. I believe that that money is well spent, but alas, I am in no position to be paying even relatively small fees to volunteer in other countries. It's quite a problem, since I do want to help. 

How I did it 

My experiences independently volunteering aren't picture perfect, even in comparison to voluntourism. To begin with, it's a struggle for me to even travel. I'm the only child of a single mom, and I've held a job for as long as I can remember, even babysitting others about a year younger than myself at the time. Yet I went to Ecuador for six weeks after highschool, with volunteering firmly on my agenda. I was able to do so because I had applied for a scholarship from Youth for Understanding, an international exchange organization. I was to live with a host family in Quito, Ecuador for 6 weeks. I had been traveling on scholarship since middle school, but I was finally at an age, 17, where I felt that I should do something more during my travels. While YFU did not provide any volunteer opportunities, I was determined to find my own once there. 

Of course, my lower-middle class host family had understandably little experience or knowledge of volunteering - the rich white tourists volunteered, not the struggling Ecuadoreans. Everywhere I called or Googled, it looked the same: $300 application fee here, $500 donation there, and I was getting frustrated. Finally, I had the bright, or perhaps lucky, idea of searching ONLY for volunteer opportunities for Ecuadoreans. My Spanish was good enough that I fooled the person on the phone who answered for Quito Joven Voluntario, and the next thing that I knew, I was looking at a bemused Program Assistant and taking a group interview with six other Ecuadorean youths. The program didn't require a cent since most Ecuadoreans wouldn't want to or be able to pay to volunteer either. I was ultimately accepted and allowed to work at a daycare center and meal kitchen near Plaza Francisco and Calle Ocho de Mayo in the heart of historic downtown. It was a wonderful experience, but independent volunteer fatigue set in. It was incredibly lonely, since I lived an hour and a half away from the site, and none of the other exchange students volunteered. I had to bid adieu to the other volunteers every day after work so that I could take the bus and return to my host family. I also felt unsafe after about two days, and I discovered that the area which I had chosen was considered the most dangerous of all the neighborhoods in Quito only after my camera had impressively vanished. In the future, I will definitely ask about every single neighborhood which I will travel to. Finally, the only organized aspect of the entire program was that the kids seemed to get fed every day. Other than that, the volunteers never felt more useful than moving and talking mannequins. The center seemed to use all of its government funds into decorating the place, but the volunteers and myself never taught the kids anything useful. In fact, one day I was coerced into giving the girls a 'modeling' class, seemingly to pass the time and to enforce gender stereotyped aspirations.

Still, I have hope

Nevertheless, the experience taught me a great deal, out of which this site was partially born. Volunteering in Ecuador has shown me how difficult the search for independent volunteer can be, and the need for such resources and personal evaluation. As a solo-travelling female livin' on the cheap, I want worthwhile and safe volunteer work. I will therefore provide as many independent volunteer resources as I can, and describe the process of procuring an opportunity as well as my experiences abroad so that you all can get a better idea of the best organizations out there to give your precious time. 

Upcoming projects 

This summer, I will volunteer in Peru for 3 weeks. I am in the process of securing a free volunteer opportunity, so I will update you guys on that. I am looking at teaching English at La Casa de Mayten, which is a grassroots effort to address the residual and long-standing damage from the 2007 earthquake, or researching for the Perupedia, a developing social and cultural Peruvian directory, as a Karikuy volunteer. Both opportunities are completely free and provide accomodations. I am looking at a couple of others, as well, all found on the links on this blog to the right. Then, to feed my starving bank account, I will work as an au pair in Paris. Au pairing is a wonderful opportunity for living abroad and immersing oneself in another culture while making enough money to get by and perhaps even save up. Perhaps I will also get to volunteer in Paris or some other part of France or Europe, so I will update you guys on that as well.

It is liberating and inspiring to know that it is possible to travel the world, learn about important social issues and try to address them, with very little money but a lot of discernment, passion and fortitude. I want to tell everybody that it is possible, people are doing it, and it is worth it. Well, until next time!