By Gabriela Mondino | VISIONAR Scholarships
Letters from a firefighter: Matias’ story.
In this report, I invite you to get to know a bit more about one of our VISIONAR students. Matias embodies the spirit of VISIONAR. He is goal-oriented, ambitious, hard-working student, and more: when Matias is not busy studying or helping in his uncle’s clothing business, Matias is a volunteer firefighter. He is an inspiration for us all.
Nota Bene: I obtained Matias’ permission to share excerpts of his email messages.
Feb 17, 2014
I am Matias, and I receive a VISIONAR scholarship. First of all, I want to thank VISIONAR for this great help; I don’t have words to thank you enough.
I am 22 years old and am in the 3rd year of college with a major in international business. I come from a very hard-working family. My father is a factory worker for a company that manufactures sewing machines and kitchen stoves. My mom is a housewife and works as a seamstress. I have two older sisters, Vanesa and Noelia.
Besides going for my degree in international business, I am truly passionate about my service as a firefighter. Unlike in the United States, the majority of firefighters in Argentina are volunteers. No pay means that we have to find other careers in parallel to firefighting. But our training is just as rigorous and our involvement in the community is just as professional as if it was a full-time job. The best pay as a firefighter is a hug and a “thank you” from the people we get to help. Sometimes I get to save lives, sometimes I get to save property, but I do it all with a lot of passion. And after an incident that might require long hours and dangerous situations, I and my team get to go back to our “day jobs” and occupations.
For now I will stop here, because I could write pages and pages about my experiences as a firefighter and what that means to me.
TO CONTINUE READING MATIAS' STORY, PLEASE OPEN THE ATTACHMENT.
As always, thank you for your donations and your support! They are helping change the future for our students.
Warm regards,
Gabriela
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