Volunteering...

[SuperPilot]

Well bradly it isn´t like i am locked in or anything... let me know what you think is the best way to help out? I am very intersted!

 

[sesamosinsal]

SuperPilot,

I wanted to volunteer teaching English with LIFE, and that didn't happen. It's been two years, so things could have changed. But I doubt it.

When I volunteered with LIFE, the main issue was that the coordinators themselves were not Argentines or living in the villas. Most of them were either from the U.S. or France. The kids have little respect for authority as it is, and it's even worse when you're foreign. Thus, they had no control whatsoever over these kids. There are also no adults from the communities that really keep the kids in line.

They would say absolutely horrible things to some of the volunteers. One time, there was a French guy who dressed very well, and obviously put a lot of time into his appearance. Some kid came up to him and asked, "Sos hombre o mujer?" Talk about awkward. With the female volunteers, some of the young boys made very lewd comments. I know how kids are, as I was one myself. In my own country, I feel as though I could reprimand them for this type of behavior, but as an outsider it becomes very difficult, if not impossible, to reprimand any of them. Most of the volunteers have very poor Spanish, if any at all, thus they never understand what these kids are saying to them. However, that's also precisely part of the problem. You can't exactly make much of a difference if you can't speak the language.

So, they send you into these comedores (small, dining halls, essentially.) with someone who knows nothing more about the area than you do. Most of them have no knowledge of the villas, poor Spanish, etc., etc. LIFE caters to the tourist. You pay them your $20 pesos, you see poverty up-close, and walk away with a shirt. For the love of God, their office is in the HEART of Recoleta. Come on, really?

These volunteer organizations/NGOs have to operate like a business because the funds aren't there. It's not like it is in the United States where you can setup a bake sale out front of Wal-Mart and raise a couple hundred dollars for an organization. (Nobody trusts a soul in Buenos Aires) Unfortunately, I think this constant quest for funding is a major distraction from their overall goal.

So how can you be an EFFECTIVE volunteer? In 2009, I posted an ad on Craigslist volunteering to help people with their English for free. I ended being an English tutor for a Brazilian woman living in Argentina. I felt much more effective doing this than going through some organization that is just worrying about its bottom line. So, I think you just have to throw yourself out there. I don't know what your interests are, but teaching English for free is a great way to help someone out. As many jobs in Argentina require some level of English, it is very empowering for people.

 

[SaraSara]

Great post, and great idea. I think I'll help people with their Spanish for free.

 

[elhombresinnombre]

The lack of blood donors is a huge problem in Buenos Aires....

I've been a regular blood donor for years in the UK so this would come easy for me. But I was told that, because of various scandals and debacles in the UK blood transfusion service involving CJD and HIV, Argentina takes the precaution of declining blood donations from Brits. Is this true?

 

[Ailujjj]

Hmmm shame about such a negative experience with L.I.F.E.

That said, the format seems to now be a one-time donation of 25-50$ USD which doesn't really strike me as a cash-grab. I've seen several volunteer placement agencies that charge hundred of dollars.

While short training may not be optimal for having really strong volunteers able to do work of the calibre of someone paid, short training and little commitment is probably a format that is attractive to a lot of people. Many people don't volunteer bc they view the commitment as too great (extensive training, committing to x number of hours/schedule per week for 3-6-12 months etc). Any volunteer program is going to have to make compromises according to what it's priorities are: lots of people to help out with low commitment - or fewer people with high commitment. It's probably more effective to simply maximize the few people who will commit a lot of time within the context of a low commitment format.

Any feedback on other organizations ? & SuperPilot, would love to hear any feedback on Tuesday's info session.

 

[sesamosinsal]

Hmmm shame about such a negative experience with L.I.F.E.

That said, the format seems to now be a one-time donation of 25-50$ USD which doesn't really strike me as a cash-grab. I've seen several volunteer placement agencies that charge hundred of dollars.

While short training may not be optimal for having really strong volunteers able to do work of the calibre of someone paid, short training and little commitment is probably a format that is attractive to a lot of people. Many people don't volunteer bc they view the commitment as too great (extensive training, committing to x number of hours/schedule per week for 3-6-12 months etc). Any volunteer program is going to have to make compromises according to what it's priorities are: lots of people to help out with low commitment - or fewer people with high commitment. It's probably more effective to simply maximize the few people who will commit a lot of time within the context of a low commitment format.

Any feedback on other organizations ? & SuperPilot, would love to hear any feedback on Tuesday's info session.

LIFE charges you a registration fee of some sort, then 20 pesos per activity. That number may have changed since I last did it. They charge this fee because they need the money. I'm not criticizing them for this whatsoever. However, I think that the constant money issues lead them to get distracted from their mission, which is to improve the lives of these kids. Another issue is the high turnover, no commitment you mention. Most of the coordinators and people who run the organization are interns from abroad. Obviously, most of the volunteers are students and world travelers wanting to make some kind of difference in the lives of these children. That's all well and good, but something tells me that people (might) do this more for their own benefit than the benefit of these children.

For example, LIFE promotes education for these kids. Well, how can you impart any type of knowledge to these children without any Spanish skills, as the case tends to be? Some volunteers I worked with didn't even now their numbers in Spanish. I'm not necessarily criticizing the volunteers, and I think their intentions are great. However, I ask again, what's the point of even showing up if you can't even say, "4 + 4 = 8" in Spanish?

You could make an argument that the volunteers improve the lives of these children on a rather temporary, superficial basis. Most of them are genuinely excited by and interested in the volunteers. If anything, you might put a smile on their faces. While that may make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, what good does that really do for them on a longterm basis? I guess I would like for my volunteering to have an effect on these kids, to empower them. I love to see them happy, but I would much rather prefer to see them being given a chance to climb the social ladder and have a chance at a decent education, a job, a future. Don't you?

LIFE needs to recruit volunteer coordinators who are at the very least native Spanish speakers. An authority figure from the villa should be present to help keep the kids from clawing, beating, throwing rocks, etc. (One kid bit my hand and drew blood.) The native Spanish-speaking volunteer coordinators should be able to work one-on-one with that authority figure to implement a project. When I was with LIFE, the projects were jokes. The volunteers would show up to some house in the heart of Ciudad Oculta, and a bunch of kids would just show up. There wasn't even enough space for them. The woman that owned the house wasn't even in the room helping us keep the kids in line. We would whip out of a few Math sheets time and time again, work with the kids for maybe 15 minutes, and then color pictures of Cinderella for the remaining 1h30m. It's all very disorganized and ineffective. Frankly, there's no reason for it to be.

The projects could be so, so much better. Math is important, don't get me wrong. But what these kids need to realize is that they have a voice, and that their voice matters. They grow up in this environment that says they're not valued, that they have nothing to offer the world. If the right people were there, technology could be used to change these ideas. The kids old enough to write could create their own newspaper, for example. They could write articles on issues that mattered to THEM. They could be prompted to write about things that they would like to change in THEIR community. These articles and the kids' pictures could be placed in a newspaper put together by the volunteers. It seems small and trivial to us, but these kind of things make kids feel like they matter. One of my colleagues in university has implemented this project in Brazil, and it was very successful.

Again, I really recommend the book "La Oculta" by Jorge Tasin. I purchased it several months ago at El Ateneo on Santa Fe. It is an excellent book that speaks to the realities of life in the villas miserias.