18-Month: Fighting Shoulder to Shoulder with the Poor

I had a great opportunity to volunteer at One World Center for 18 months, It was an amazing experience ever in my life, I had so much fun meeting people from all over the world and I also had the privilege of living in Michigan Unites States and travel to different cities in this country in my training period in my first 6 months,and I had the blessing of making my service period in Mozambique, Africa, In Manhiça Distric for 6 months. I worked with two schools there Xirindza School and Chibututuine School, I was a teacher of math, sports, music and also taught children how to read Portuguese. in addition, I helped to build 8 playground with my teammate. Everything that I did there was with much love.
My journal period was for almost 6 months in United States where I could share about my experience in Africa and how I helped many children there.

The experience of preparing myself at One World Center to be able to volunteer in Malawi was incredible.

In Africa I worked for 6 months with preschools in a rural community and it changed my life completely. Knowing new cultures and working shoulder to shoulder with communities in favor of education changed my worldview.

Every child has the right to go to school and the OWC helps us to improve our skills to do our best volunteer work.

I had the support of my team and the organization to reach my goals and I am very happy for this trajectory that I had for 18 months.

I am a volunteer, I always believed in how interesting it would be to serve with goodwill, with my hands, my ideas, my strengths and even more with my weaknesses. It sounds weird, but to think about helping others, accompanying them, living their life experience a little, I feel that it is immersing themselves in the need of the other to collectively achieve the desired goals. I volunteer and I feel good when I feel I can be useful. My experience has been extraordinary, I don't know where to start, but I want to assure you that anyone who reads this will be restless about how it was. I wanted to volunteer and now I didn't know where to do it, that's when I met ONE WORLD CENTER, I traveled to Michigan and enrolled in their volunteer program. I didn't know anything about this organization, but once inserted into it, I loved the discipline and responsibility of a community. I felt at home, I felt like family, I never felt alone; there were friends; other volunteers from different parts of the world, all in a previous training to travel
as volunteers to other countries. My goal was to volunteer in Africa and six months later I traveled to Malawi. Now I was in Johannesburg, concerns and concerns were left behind, I was halfway to reach my goal because I was volunteering and the idea was always to go to work helping others, I arrived with materially empty hands, but with love force in my heart .
I have always thought that it is the humanitarian and solidarity feeling that should move us if we want to have a better world. In my diary I was able to write: Between thinking and writing, I don't know if time will come. Every day that passes I know more about these people. It is because here where I am, poverty is observed in many different ways and the desire of people struggling to survive is evident. I worked in Malawi and my project was with preschool children in an area of extreme poverty, in Milala and Chilangoma. In Malawi, preschool care is provided voluntarily by local residents based on teachers; so we can see housewives and parents attending to the little ones. My experience as a volunteer totally changed my life, I thought I was going to help and teach, however, I have to thank the people in Malawi who helped me
and taught me many things. They taught me that a smile and a kind word can change anyone's life. That it is not material things that give value to your life. That in terms of goals the attitude has to do. I thank ONE WORLD CENTER for the opportunity to train as a development Instructor, I lived my experience in Michigan, in an environment of safety and respect where I had my space to study, learn and share in a community environment.

Back in Mexico I had I totally different point of view about life and the countries outside Mexico.
Back in 2015, I did the 18 months program in Mozambique. The project in Mozambique was TCE, a program that helps communities to overcome and defeat AIDS and Tuberculosis.

The first 6 months I spend it in Michigan, USA. I learn how to do gardening, how to cook for several people, I learn about issues of our time like poverty, climate change and development.

I went to a project in Chokwe, Mozambique. A small town that was almost 2 hours away from the nearest city. I had a lot of challenges to overcome. The first one was realizing how many problems the world has, and that me alone could not change anything but what I could do is help a big group of people to change things.

I was part of a project called TCE. The project fights against AIDS. Our way to help the project was by getting books and creating several libraries about AIDS, Tuberculosis and women empowerment.

I loved my time in the volunteer program because it totally change my mind and life. I looked back and compare the person arriving to the program and the person I am now and I can see how much the program change me for good.

The first 6 months from this experience have gone traveling, between discussions about important themes about worldwide, learning about building, preparing ourselves for the projects we envisioning in Africa, learning how to cook and other daily practices. Close to our date of departure to Malawi, we start to mostly focus on what we will be working within our service period and to get knowledge about the projects in which volunteers have been done and to plan for which is coming.
To land in Malawi was to struggle with new transformations because everything was completely new and different, to feel the needs to be part of the social process makes me stay motived to wants to do the tasks every moment better; every moment make me feel so proud of me to see how the projects we’re working and running and get the community involved.
Little by little, the projects proposed and accepted by the communities began to take shape over time, which led us not only to see how the results were obtained but also how the communities were transforming their environment at the same time. Additionally, we had the opportunity to meet volunteers from other countries.
The six months in Malawi not only constituted the best experience of my life for everything done personally and professionally, but it was also an experience that took my mentality beyond logic to come up with solutions that with the passage of time, the acquisition of knowledge and constant interaction with people, were meeting increasingly better expectations. Having the chance to live and coexist in these spaces led me to understand a little better the great world we occupy and how we can be so equal and different at the same time as a human being that lives on the planet, so urgent of those who appreciate helping the other.
We were eager to tell the world what we did in Africa, thus we organized another trip with the aim of promoting more actions and inspiring society, we also participated in the march for climate change in New York City, a call made by Greta Thunberg. As personal strategies, make a photographic exhibition in the town's library “African faces and Smiles” and carry out talks and promotional meetings about my experience, the program, and the school in Barrancabermeja, Colombia.

It was an incredible experience that helped me grow and learn the most important things in life. I was on the Michigan campus and then in Mozambique, Africa developed.
I developed like 10 different projects, so it's very possible. Everything I did had the support of the school and my leading project in Mozambique.
I was in a school to training teachers and a primary school but also they are located in a community so is perfecto to feel and learn about the culture.
And you really going to surprise yourself about how strong are you! When I started that program I just speaker Spanish and now I also speak English and Portuguese!

The first 6 months from this experience have gone traveling, between discussions about important themes about worldwide, learning about building, preparing ourselves for the projects we envisioning in Africa, learning how to cook and other daily practices. Close to our date of departure to Malawi, we start to mostly focus on what we will be working within our service period and to get knowledge about the projects in which volunteers have been done and to plan for which is coming.
To land in Malawi was to struggle with new transformations because everything was completely new and different, to feel the needs to be part of the social process makes me stay motived to wants to do the tasks every moment better; every moment make me feel so proud of me to see how the projects we’re working and running and get the community involved.
Little by little, the projects proposed and accepted by the communities began to take shape over time, which led us not only to see how the results were obtained but also how the communities were transforming their environment at the same time. Additionally, we had the opportunity to meet volunteers from other countries.
The six months in Malawi not only constituted the best experience of my life for everything done personally and professionally, but it was also an experience that took my mentality beyond logic to come up with solutions that with the passage of time, the acquisition of knowledge and constant interaction with people, were meeting increasingly better expectations. Having the chance to live and coexist in these spaces led me to understand a little better the great world we occupy and how we can be so equal and different at the same time as a human being that lives on the planet, so urgent of those who appreciate helping the other.
We were eager to tell the world what we did in Africa, thus we organized another trip with the aim of promoting more actions and inspiring society, we also participated in the march for climate change in New York City, a call made by Greta Thunberg. As personal strategies, make a photographic exhibition in the town's library “African faces and Smiles” and carry out talks and promotional meetings about my experience, the program, and the school in Barrancabermeja, Colombia.

This experience will definitely be a journey full of experiences to enriched your life and to help make the world a better place at the same time. I was part of the 18 month program at One World Center. My team started the beginning of November 2018. I wanted to help improve global poverty and do humanitarian work with various topics; sustainability, environmental issues, human rights, climate change issues, renewable energy sources, and more. The program is split into 3 periods; the preparatory period, service period, and journal/sharing about the service experiences period. During my service period I went to Southern Mozambique and was a Core Group Teacher at One World University. While I was there I taught English Classes at the school and in the local town community. I also was involved with various projects like; Gardening/Agricultural Classes and Projects, Dance Clubs, Futboll Tournaments, Portuguese Classes, Health & Wellness Activities and Actions, Music Culture Activities & Actions, Art Classes & Activities, Theater Presentations, Environmental Activities & Actions, and Community Events & Activities, and more. I had many memorable experiences both at the University and in the local nearby community. I taught, learned, inspired, shared, educated, mobilized, motivated, helped, enjoyed, discussed, empowered, improved, laughed, and took in a lot of what the experience offered. Now I'm sharing about my experiences and journey during it as a new teacher at One World Center. I highly recommend this program to anyone looking to do humanitarian work around the world, looking to fight poverty shoulder to shoulder with the poor, and to tackle other global issues with others in a collective community that share the same goal of improving human rights and humanity globally.