Empowering 300 children in Chile

VE Global volunteers come from all over the world and for many different reasons. Some see it as a nice break from school, an opportunity to expand their world-view and gain experience outside of the classroom. Others see it as a chance to escape a boring job and make a change to their career path. Still others see it as the best way to improve their Spanish while gaining invaluable work and life experiences. Whatever their personal reasons may be, every single one of our volunteers comes to VE sharing our vision of a global community that seeks equality of opportunity for all children.

We are gearing up for another big wave of new volunteers who share this vision. The September 2012 class is filling up fast, with "newbies" hailing from Austria, Germany, Venezuela, and the United States. We are excited to welcome them into the VE community, but also eager to add more members to the team.

Prospective volunteers are often skeptical about the minimum time commitment of four months as a VE volunteer. In the end, not only do most of our volunteers find that four months flies by, but also a great number of our volunteers decide to extend their stay. Why? Oftentimes, they feel like they were just starting to gain the children´s trust and feel a deep bond forming. As volunteer Liz Jones stated, “Because we volunteer for a significant amount of time it allows us to get really close to the kids we work with every day. They become a part of us and feel like family. This feeling will stay with me forever.” Other times volunteers are interested in extending their stay by working in the VE office. Whether becoming a Coordinator or an Intern for  Programs or Resource Development, or taking on a longer commitment as Director, VE volunteers recognize the benefits of staying on to gain a varied set of skills and work experience.

We are so proud of our volunteers, their vision and their commitment.  As Ron Cutraro, long-time supporter of VE, put it: “VE volunteers are absolutely outstanding and dedicated! I have nothing but the greatest regards for what VE stands for and the people who are so giving of themselves to make it happen!” We couldn't agree more.

Links:

• For more information, check out our homepage.
• Read Robin's blog: How Four Months Turned into Eight

One of our main programs at VE Global is English in Motion (EIM), in which volunteers teach English to the children in a fun, interactive way, such as learning body parts by singing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, or learning commands while playing Simon Says. This not only reinforces what the kids learn in school, but gives them the opportunity to hear English spoken by a native speaker, as most of our volunteers are from English-speaking countries.

EIM is a program that runs throughout the school year. During this time, VE volunteers are encouraged to run English workshops at least one a week with the children in their institutions, but many volunteers also report giving “informal” lessons nearly every day. And we have seen lots of success in EIM recently. At San Francisco de Regis, volunteers helped the girls make paper fans, teaching them the names of colors in English as they painted them. At Promesa Niños, the boys play Hide and Seek in English with the volunteers, and shout “Go Fish!” when playing the popular card game. At Promesa Niñas, the volunteers have been working on the girls’ conversational abilities, by greeting them every day with “Hello, how are you?” and saying “Goodbye! See you tomorrow!” at the end of the day. Even a 2-year-old, the youngest in the home, has successfully learned how to say “Hello” and “Goodbye,” because one of the volunteers discovered she could use the greetings in a silly game of peek-a-boo.  

Links:

• For more information, check out our homepage.
• Read about volunteer Elodie's experience juggling 3 languages