Page 41 - OM Newsletter - Issue 43 - 2020

OM VOLUNTEERING
Hubbard and Whitehead
Well done to Tristan Hubbard (SH.14- 19) and Max Whitehead (SH.14-17) who have recently returned from Johannesburg where they worked for 3 weeks for a charity called @qhubeka, building bikes for school children, organising distributions and holding fundraisers.
Louisa Zinke (EH.14-18) writes:
During my gap year, I worked at ‘Aldea Infantil Juan Pablo II’, an orphanage run solely on donations and home to around sixty children from birth to 18 y.o. The orphanage is divided into different houses. Each house is home to about ten children that live together with one ‘mother’. The children live in poor conditions yet are all healthy and well-nourished. All children go to school in the hope that one day, when they leave the orphanage, they will be able to look after themselves. The children receive little support with their homework and some struggle with mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, and aggression, caused by prior experiences and life circumstances – a challenge for the psychologists working at the site. Not surprisingly, the orphanage needs help in many areas. While I mainly helped the children with their homework and worked as an English teacher, I was prepared to do any kind of work such as feeding and dressing the little children, playing games indoors and outdoors, and, through the skills I learned during my past volunteering experiences, I initiated two projects: one focused on the clean-up of the playground and the garden of the orphanage and the other succeeded in introducing and building a vegetable garden for the orphanage. These two projects on top of my regular work took time and effort, nevertheless, the outcome, the pride in the
Lucas Heappey
Lucas Heappey (7.13-18) spent his gap year volunteering in Cambodia for Sauceong.org, an organisation that works with children and young adults unable to live with their families either through disability (land mines, polio,
debilitating physical illness) or are at risk. Lucas was originally going to go for three months but extended his stay to six months because he loved the work and the people so much.
children’s eyes after seeing what we had managed to accomplish was heart-warming. I have to admit at times my tasks felt daunting and I struggled to work and play with toddlers, whose prior experiences resulted in them crying whenever one stepped closer to them and who would not speak for weeks. Yet, it is more rewarding when after hours of trying, they start to interact with you, talk to you about their siblings, ask you whether you want to push their swings, or eventually after weeks run up to you and hug you. These were the moments that taught me so much more than academics could ever teach me. I learnt how small my problems were compared to the world’s problems and what a difference we could all make in the lives of others if only we tried harder and pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones. After months of challenge and growth in South America, I can honestly say that saying goodbye to the children in the orphanage was one of the hardest goodbyes of my life. What is going to happen to the children I started to love and care so much about? Luckily, up to this day I have managed to communicate regularly with the director of the orphanage to organise donations and plan future visits.
Louisa Zinke
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