We are two volunteers from the NGO “Voluntario Global”, we are part of the communication team and we also started a French class project. Because of COVID-19 we were not lucky enough to go to the projects and meet the coordinators and the volunteers of each project, however, social networks were the only solution found to respond to volunteering. Thanks to platforms like Skype, Google zoom and WhatsApp we managed to maintain a human connection with the school children, teachers, and coordinators. In addition, the quarantine was effective in thinking about other projects and also finding other ways to communicate.
Our missions to promote volunteering
To better understand each project such as the Kindergarten project, Community Radio, English Classes... and how the projects are dealing with the coronavirus crisis, we interviewed the coordinators of each project and asked a little bit about how the project was formed, who participates and what the objectives and actions are. We remembered the interviews to listen with an elaborated point of view. After, our second mission was to write articles about how Coronavirus has impacted each project and how the NGO responds to. We also talk about our own experience of foreigners in Buenos Aires and our quarantine in videos published on the website of the NGO “Voluntario Global”. And we did videos of prevention of coronavirus dedicated to children in several languages in which we talk about the steps to prevents it. Besides, we interviewed Steve Sclar, a protagonist/ co-director of Omprakash and Edge to understand how COVID-19 affects the world and how it impacts the environment and the economy.
Our English and French classes
The children of the English institutes have already started classes through Skype with English teachers, and they are very happy about it and motivated to learn new things and acquire new skills in languages. One of the institutes, wanted us to participate in an online meeting with pupils and volunteers from all around the world with the aim of practice English and share new elements about everyone’s culture and improve our vocabulary. There were different groups following the level of English from the little one to adults in which we were switched every 15 minutes. Everyone is satisfied with this type of meeting, and they found it very interesting.
With the other English institute, we thought about a new project: to teach French because, in Argentina, almost no one does speak French thus it was an interesting idea for their career to discover another language. Children found themselves very excited about the project. It is a big challenge to teach them a new language because they are beginners thus, we had to start slowly and efficiently. We take care of 3 groups of different age so we had to adapt our teaching method to each group. It is so enriching to be a teacher and we are glad to be part of this fabulous project.
