Back in 2006 Bernadette Hoste saw a Poster of Voluntario Global at her Spanish classes in Buenos Aires. She applied through an email. Since then she has come back every year for a couple of months, to volunteer at Voluntario Global. Her first day started off in Villa Soldati. In 2007 she continued working in La Chispa, in order to help out and teach the students. In the following year she gave English classes to the kids at the same place.

She started a project in February 2008 to collect money through her friends and family in Belgium, France and England. This can also be seen on her website, which was created two years ago: www.la-chispa.org. Bernadette enjoys teaching and continued doing this the last two years. She started giving English classes to many different students and also preparing them for their upcoming exams. In addition she went to the home in Beccar, helping out with the younger kids.

This year she also went to the Kindergarden in J.L. Suarez and had great fun playing with the little ones and helping with handing out lunch. In 2010 she already helped out at the kindergarten and therefore wants to enlarge her project to collect funds, not only from family and friends but also from other people. For that, she will soon make her project “official“. We wish Bernadette all the luck for her new project and are looking forward for her coming back next year. 

Cinemas across Buenos Aires are now showing *Invictus*, a Clint Eastwood film about Nelson Mandela and the troubles he faced when first coming into power. Although your personal opinions on the film may vary, one message remains clear: despite being set directly after the abolition of apartheid, in the film the entire South African nation is united through an international rugby match against Australia. We can use this example to highlight the importance of recreational activities in bringing together groups of people. Indeed, this is something Voluntario Global does on a daily basis as VG international volunteers interact with more marginalised groups in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It goes without saying that Nelson Mandela's achievements are nothing short of remarkable, and in the years following his presidency we have been able to witness progress in other previously divided nations. For example, Evo Morales became Bolivia's first indigenous president and is now able to offer equal treatment to this group of people that had been neglected by all the country's previously unrepresentative leaders. As history progresses we shall see instances of many more incredible stories, in which disadvantaged people defy all odds and achieve success, be it in the political sphere or elsewhere. We at Voluntario carry out this mission too. Although the people whose lives we change may not be the next great politicians to serve their nation, we always strive to help them fufill their potential. We believe that social differences should not hinder social equality and through our diverse projects we try to make our vision a reality.

Hello. I'm Matt and I've been volunteering for Voluntario Global for 3 months. I've spent most of my time in the ''Comedor Los Pibes'', a social political organization in La Boca. I recently spent a week in the beautiful province of Jujuy with 11 compañeros from the Comedor under the catchy title of ''Comunitarian self management for the exchange of knowledge''. The idea being to exchange information and ideas between the Comedor and the sister organizations there. I went for Voluntario Global to look into possibility of volunteers working there. I'll try and give you an idea of how the week went.

We left at the barbaric time of 8am on Sunday to cover the 1,600 km to Jujuy from La Boca. Having worked there for a few months I felt comfortable in the group although more as a volunteer than a compañero, for this I was a bit unsure about how the week would go but they were very welcoming and friendly, especially La Negra (not as racist as it sounds) who continued to call me ''Hello'' until Wednesday. Sunday was basically the journey and Argentina's finest service stations, it ended well with celebrating popular compañero Pedro's birthday.



On Monday we arrived early in San Pedro and at our temporary home of Romina Fernandez, the co-ordinator for Comedor Los Pibes San Pedro. The first of many many meetings began soon, I had been charged with video recording the week for the Comedor which can best be described as learning by error. The meeting went well with a good exchange of ideas and after lunch and a walk around the village, the 2nd meeting began. It was again productive but a bit of a stretch at 3 1/2 hours, people were literally falling asleep at the end which is usually a good time to call it a day. In the evening we celebrated dia del niño with the towns children and some unbelievably dressed clowns, after some delicious home made empanadas, we were about done and the 1st day was over. The solidarity and generosity between the groups was something I quickly noticed, be it opening their house to us and feeding us for free or Los Pibes donating a computer or a projector, it was touching to see such humble people prepared to share so much.



On Tuesday we went to Tupaj Katari in the capital city San Salvador. Tupaj Katari is similiar to the Comedor in that it fights for social justice whilst also providing a service to the community. It made a good impression on me, I found them driven and intelligent people based on the principles of ´´action and talk´´. Perro Santillan, the Tupaj Katari leader and a prominent Argentine militant also stressed the importance of solidarity. After a tour around the town and its beautiful countryside, and creating a panic by going for ice cream without telling everyone. The meeting began, it was again positive but more so the assembly later on as there was a heated debate with where our compañeros spoke passionately about their work. It was an unusually passionate meeting but for this reason, successful. We returned to San Pedro pleased with the days work. For the 1st time in Argentina, I felt I had arrived in the true Latin America today. For a province where 40% of the people live under the poverty line, the problems and injustice were brutally clear, I think any volunteer would feel enthused and motivated working there.



To be continued next week…

Fine beasts. Happy faces. And look at this strange horse! The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. (Gandhi)

Morning campers, Thank you for joining us at the Voluntario Global blog. Last Saturday a group of children from Comedor Los Pibes and several volunteers (Yvonne, Marisa, Pedro, Bertha, Valeria, Johan, Stefanie, Amelia and Zoe) went to the zoo to say hello to our furry friends from the animal kingdom. The whole trip was the result of our very own Yvonne's hard work fundraising with her friends and acquaintances back home in Holland. Thanks to her fundraising skills, we were able to hire a micro and take around 20 kids to the zoo in Palermo on Saturday.

The children, aged between around eight and thirteen, had an absolute whale of a time (pun ahoy!). They were split up into little groups and were given maps to find their way around. They saw lions, elephants, giraffes, hippos, rhinos, a polar bear, some strange little beaver-like creatures that no one could quite identify, and the kids particularly enjoyed feeding the goats and reindeer. There was even a little boat trip, which they also love. It was, all in all, a wonderful day out and very many thanks to Yvonne for all her hard work in organising it. There is another fundraising party coming up on July 11th in Puerto Madero, details of which will be going up on our Facebook page later today. See you next week!

La risa ella sola ha cavado más túneles útiles que todas las lágrimas de la tierra. Julio Cortazar, Rayuela

Oh, hello! Welcome to the new, revitalised Voluntario Global blog. My name is Ed and for the next few weeks I will be guiding you like a latter-day Virgil around our various projects in and around Buenos Aires. I arrived in Argentina a week ago and much of this is as new to me as it might be to you, dear reader. My Spanish is a slumbering beast, which has been hibernating in the shadow of a French tree for the last seven months, and I can’t wake him up! I am still getting to grips with the ‘coins on the bus’ fiasco (for some reason the driver won’t accept my pesetas). But it has been a fascinating, enlightening and varied week. Blog number one will be a chronicle of the places I have visited and the people I have met in the last seven days; it will serve, I hope, to show the work of the organisation through the eyes of a beginner like me and to illustrate the warmth and efficiency with which new volunteers are embraced at Voluntario Global as well as the untold good it does in these communities.

On Monday, I met with Valeria Gracia (Head Co-ordinator) and Jesica Franco (Volunteer Programme Manager) in our leafy office in Palermo, where the week ahead was discussed, mate was drunk (“Don’t stir it”) and the history of Voluntario Global was explained (for more information on the latter, check out: http://www.voluntarioglobal.org.ar ). On Tuesday morning I went to La Boca to meet Pedro, a charismatic, articulate local who gives a meticulous tour of the area to those who want to volunteer for the day. Amongst our company were my colleague Jonathan, a family from California, a Dutch girl and a wonderful woman from Trinidad and Tobago who also acted as Pedro’s interpreter. Pedro explains that Voluntario Global helps locals in three particular areas: ‘alimentación’ (food), ‘viviendas’ (housing) and ‘trabajo’ (jobs). }

El Comedor, a cafeteria in one of the poorer parts of La Boca where volunteers are warmly encouraged to help prepare food in the kitchen, not only provides food for families but also acts as a venue for political debate (led by governor Tito Nenna.) It would be arrogant and all-too-easy for me to criticise the government on my second day in Argentina and I don’t know nearly enough to do so fairly, but the consensus in the area is that the government could do a bit more to help: two examples are the government’s failure to publicise the housing rights to which large families are entitled (a 10 storey apartment block is currently being constructed and the locals are entitled to much more, but the government prefers not to make this information more available) and the (government-approved) desire of one big business to expand into La Boca, which would destroy the meagre makeshift local housing in its wake. What I do know, from the various locals I have met and from the political debate. I witnessed on Wednesday morning in particular, is that these locals are intelligent, thoughtful, reasonable, humorous and extremely decent people who deserve better than to have to cram into rooms the size of a small bathroom with three other people just to sleep and to have to go through bins in the local rubbish dump to find something to eat. They are also independent.

When more houses need to be built in the future, rather than use an outside company whose priorities are to use the cheapest materials and to charge as much as possible, it would be far better to use local construction workers who will work more quickly and with better materials because they appreciate the importance of housing in the area, as well as proving that the community can support itself. On Wednesday afternoon, after the aforementioned political discussion, I left with teachers Berta and Armin for Villa 21 in Barracas, a shanty town to which Voluntario Global provides English and Maths teachers. The pupils were great, keen and bright and funny, and it was a genuine joy to spend time with them. Two sisters were telling me how they are in an orchestra, one on the violin and the other on the cello, and how they sit at opposite sides of the room, behind the conductor’s line of vision at opposite ends of the horseshoe as it were, and try to put each other off. Anyone interested in teaching in Argentina would love the classes in Barracas.

On Thursday morning, I was invited to a meeting in the Instituto Nacional de la Administración Pública in the town centre, where a group of delegates had arrived from the province of Jujuy in northern Argentina. The new project, called “Autogestión Comunitaria” (Community Self-Management), is an opportunity for residents of Buenos Aires and Jujuy to exchange ideas and experiences to reach, according to Tito, “una sociedad más democrática, participativa e inclusiva.” Particular areas of focus are food, local businesses, housing, culture and opportunities for young people. Once again, the feeling was one of optimism, independence and genuine practical solutions for universal problems. Three experts gave presentations on various aspects of self-sufficiency and one speech, given by Sra Isabel Rauber (an expert on Latin American social affairs), was so well-received that, directly after it, a woman in her late eighties stood up and said how grateful she was that Sra Rauber had come. And that was my first week in Buenos Aires! What has impressed me already about Voluntario Global is their directness with volunteers and communities alike.

Unlike some volunteer agencies which, as worthy and effective as they are, charge two grand for a week of language lessons and arranging your accommodation which you still have to pay for, the money that volunteers donate through Voluntario Global goes straight to the people it is trying to help. More importantly, many of the Voluntario Global staff come from the poorest pasts of La Boca and Barracas themselves, so they more than anyone appreciate the difficulties and intricacies of each particular area. This coming Wednesday (20th May), we are attending the opening of a new community centre called Travesuras, an education and nourishment centre for young children in Los Eucaliptos, which is extremely exciting. I also plan to go to the radio station project we have in Barracas later in the week to see what our volunteers there are up to (no recorded prank calls, I hope). ¡Hasta luego!