Volunteer Experiences - Amanda

Last year, at the grand old age of 38, I decided to fulfill a life-long ambition to volunteer overseas. I spent a month at Hogar Miguel Magone, and I can’t wait to go back and do it again in September this year.

For me, a trip abroad on my own (having been with my husband 23 years!), was an adventure in itself, but when I arrived at the orphanage my worries, fears or whatever other scary emotion I had been feeling, vanished into thin air because the welcome I received was so warm and welcoming that I immediately felt at home.

Straight away I was busy with tasks around the Orphanage, which included cooking, serving meals, getting the boys up for school (at 5.30 am!!!), walking them up the massively steep hill to school (yes – you get fit on a trip like this too!), occupying the younger boys with games, teaching English, painting rooms, helping with homework, getting the little ones ready for bed, tending grazed knees, and going to church! Every day was different and every day was very full!

But it was the little things that really touched me: One day I made some animal figurines out of plasticine – a very simple thing, but for the best part of a day, two of the little boys, aged about seven, thought they were the best thing they had ever seen. They proceeded to make an aeroplane out of wood, that they could put the animals on and give them flights around the playground; amazing when you think that most kids back here in the UK are more interested in an x-box upgrade!

It was this sort of thing that highlighted to me how much these kids need us, as volunteers. They get amazing love and support from Karen and the teachers at the home; they are kept warm and fed and given a chance to go to school, and the volunteers add to that by showing that they are loved from afar too. Volunteering shows these children that people outside of the orphanage want to know them, are showing an interest in them, and are willing to give sometimes surprisingly meaningful one to one attention that they have perhaps been missing from their previous lives before they reached the Hogar.

I can tell you one thing……………..I have learned that a big house, fashionable clothes and fancy food don’t fill your heart like a week at Hogar Miguel Magone does and I would sincerely recommend a visit to anyone that has the inclination to offer a little bit of their life and love to some amazing kids that will scoop it up with relish! You don’t have to be in a “gap year” to volunteer and I think I will be doing it until I retire!

Amanda