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GVI Volunteer Case Study

Name: Genevieve Ferrier

Age: 23

Gender: Female

Country of Residence: New Zealand

Start Date: January 2nd 2010

Volunteer Program: Guatemala Teaching

Read on to find out more about Genevieve,s experience...!

GVI - Why did you decide to go on a GVI program?

Genevieve - I decided to work with GVI in Guatemala after my best friend, Libby,
suggested doing some volunteering together somewhere for the summer. We
have both lived pretty privileged lives and felt like giving back a little of the good
fortune that we have had. Growing up as an expatriate in Indonesia, I witnessed
first-hand the harsh living conditions many people are subjected to with the rate
of poverty in the world. Both having studied languages at university (Libby:
Spanish, me: French), and both having mothers that were primary school
teachers, teaching children was something we both felt we had a spark for.
Living in Australia, Libby looked around for organizations to work with - she heard
good things about GVI. Guatemala, and teaching children, was ideal. We wanted
to try and make a difference for someone, even as small as it might be.

GVI - What were your initial reactions when arriving on the project?

Genevieve - When I first arrived in Antigua, I found the GVI staff very welcoming.
I arrived just after the New Year with a big intake of new volunteers (about 11). It
was such a great mixture of people/ages/backgrounds, and pretty much
everyone was there with the same attitude: ready to put in the work and enjoy
themselves in doing so. The interns were all really helpful and I always felt that
there was someone looking out for us. They were genuinely just cool people. The
Spanish lessons were intense and personalised; I learned a lot of Spanish in a
short time (and also a lot about Guatemalan life and culture from having gossip
sessions with all the ladies from the language school!). My first day at Santa
Maria was powerful – having kids so excited to be there to learn, so grateful for
the fresh fruit break, all so helpful (and some so cheeky). Being smothered in
hugs at the end of the day by each kid made me feel like I was a part of
something special; they were grateful to me for being there, I was grateful to
them for allowing me to be a part of this community.

GVI - What was the best thing about your trip?

Genevieve - One of the best things about my trip was all the connections I made
with people: the interns, other volunteers, the Spanish teachers, the family I
stayed with, Doreen and Santiago up at Santa Maria de Jesus, and above all, with
all the niños I worked with. I made friends with so many people from different
walks of life… and some of them I know we will be friends for a long time. And I
got to know each of the kids in my class, working with them every day in school
for 6 weeks. But the best thing was seeing my kids progress in those short six
weeks that I spent with them – that it appeared I had actually imparted some
kind of knowledge or wisdom onto someone else. However, as well as being the
teacher, I also often felt like the student when the kids taught me about their
way of life, as they plaited my hair during the breaks, and as they exasperatedly
corrected me every time I mixed up the word for small (pequeño) with the word
for spicy (picante)… but who wouldn’t want to draw their circles a bit “spicier”,
huh?! We all became friends, me (a 23 year-old university student from New
Zealand) and my 40 or so four and five year-olds that all comforted me and
patted my hair as I became somewhat teary the day we came to say goodbye.
The best part of my trip was them.

GVI - What do you feel you gained from going away with GVI?

Genevieve - Going away with GVI, I gained some perspective and my concepts of
necessity and comfort changed. Having only one plug outlet to share between
three of us, as electricity in Guatemala was very expensive, meant deciding
which device I wanted charged that week: my camera, my ipod or my mobile
phone. It made me realise that a lot of the comforts that I deemed necessary to
live with before, weren’t really all that important. I learnt that having a toilet that
flushed was a luxury, and that one must choose between hot water and water
pressure when having a shower. I learnt that having clean water to drink was
precious and that simple things can make kids happy – like a pinch of glitter, a
dab of my lip gloss, or a plastic rubbish bag that moonlights as a batman cape. I
learnt that I did not need all of the luxuries of my old world to feel content at the
end of the day – that there were things bigger than that.

GVI - Is there a particular memory or interesting story you can tell us?

Genevieve - One of the moments that moved me the most was scholarship day
up at Santa Maria de Jesus- meeting all the parents/families of our students as
they came to collect the money to help send their kids to school. They were so
gracious and friendly, grateful to the program for the help that we were giving.
We were presented with a beautiful cake that all of the families had chipped in to
pay for – topped with fresh fruit and cream – to let us know of the gratitude that
they felt, and to thank us for helping make a difference in their children’s lives. It
really meant a lot to us all.

GVI – Has going away with GVI changed your life in any particular way? (e.g.: did
you find love, decide to change your career? etc)

Genevieve - Sadly, I did not find love (!), nor have I decided yet on what career
path I will take in life. However, GVI changed me in that it made me not want to
be stuck working in an industry that I now find somewhat superficial and
meaningless – because it made me realise that there are bigger and more
important things out there going on. Having completed my marketing degree, I
know now that I could never go into parts of the industry that before I would
have done so, where now fretting over something like “who should buy fabric
softener” seems so trivial on the grand scheme of things. I also know now that I
want to go back and spend more time in Central America throughout my life, and
I hope that I will see my little students every now and then as they grow up.

GVI - Feel free to tell us any other interesting stories/facts/jokes/memories from


your trip or GVI in general!

Genevieve - Some of my strongest memories lie with a young 4 year old in my


class, Sandra Paola, who clearly had learning deficiencies and perhaps some
form of mental disability – so far she had just sat in class, unable really to
concentrate, but would colour in a little every now and then. Anytime we had an
exercise where she had to use scissors, before I knew it, she would have chopped
away any work that she had done into a million little pieces (she liked her
cutting). However, I was always saddened that she never had much work to take
home. So, in about our fourth week of class, we were doing an exercise where we
had three work-sheets: two each with the numbers “1” or “2” on them, and the
other with different sets of items (butterflies, flowers etc.) either in pairs or
singular. The kids were supposed to colour everything, and then cut out the
drawings and stick the pairs of items around the number “2” and the singular
objects around the number “1”. Once Sandra had finished her “colouring” (which
she often did not do much of, as she found it difficult to concentrate- however
this time she had managed to scribble her crayons all over both pages – I was
impressed!), she came to me for scissors. Wanting her to have something to take
home to show her family (and since there was only one of me and 24 little ones
and I didn’t have time with her that day to sit down and help her cut), I tried to
distract her and told her that all the scissors were in use and that she would have
to wait until someone else was done. Whilst juggling about ten other kids around
me, and one crying on my lap, she kept coming back and demanding scissors… I
told her she’d have to wait and, in the meantime, I gave her some other sheet to
colour-in. A little while later I noticed that she hadn’t been over to me in a while,
so I looked around and there I saw her sitting in her corner, chopping away…
she’d got her hands on some scissors! I thought, alas! But what can I do! She
then came up to me demanding goma (glue) – she seemed to be in a hurry.
Thinking that it was too late to salvage anything, I gave-up and squeezed her
some glue. She rushed back over to her table. Then, once class had finished, I
called fruit time and my little ones all stampeded towards the door (I was still
working on getting them to walk to fruit time calmly!). Once the class had
emptied, I noticed that Sandra was still at her table… this was strange, as she
usually bundled out with everyone else. I go over to her and I see her slopping
glue around, slapping paper onto paper and smoothing the sheets out on her
table. Now, granted that she had not cut out the actual shapes, however she had
still cut up the sheet that she was supposed to, and had stuck rectangles of it on
the other sheets with the numbers on them. Sandra had understood my
instructions, and she had worked hard, wanting to get an exercise finished for
the first time. She had the biggest smile on her face. I was so proud – and a bit
disappointed in myself that I had not been supportive of how capable she could
really be. She then ran over to the next classroom to show Libby too. We both
gave her a High Five – she was beaming. Folding her work into her apron, she
took it home to show her parents. I will never forget that day, and how proud I
was of how far she had come.

About Global Vision International (GVI)

GVI is an internationally based volunteer abroad organisation which offers


volunteer programs in Africa, South America, Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Formed in 1998, GVI provides support and services to international charities,
non-profits and governmental agencies through volunteering opportunities and
direct funding, filling a critical void in the fields of environmental research,
conservation, education and community development. Various types of overseas
volunteer work are offered including volunteer holidays, gap year volunteering,
short term volunteering, long term volunteering, volunteer internships, intern
abroad programs, student volunteer abroad programs and employee
volunteering trips abroad. Available subjects include marine biology,
environmental research, teaching and scuba diving courses in various locations
around the world.

For more information on volunteering abroad, please visit http://www.gviusa.com


or http://www.gvi.co.uk.

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