Check out some thoughts on the volunteer experience, shared by Cindy, longtime HOY volunteer...
For international participants it can sometimes be a shock to enter the educational/childcare system in Mexico. We advise Casa HOY participants not to take things too seriously and to be prepared for a lack of, well, everything. Little or no discipline, lack of school supplies or technology, an overworked and perhaps undertrained staff, as well as limited, dirty and/or cramped facilities. Children and teenagers’ belongings and preparedness will also differ, some having a high level of English and/or nice, clean clothes, and others with only a broken pencil to their name (and of course, no eraser).
Even though Casa HOY coaches participants in preparation for these cultural differences, volunteers inevitably come with idealistic expectations for their community experience. You may think: I’m one more person, I can help with discipline. Or, I have some extra money, I can buy supplies that they will use and value. Or, I have time, I can give them the individual care and attention they need. And hopefully, most of the time, that will be the case.
Let's be realistic, though. Throughout your volunteer experience you will have up days and down days. That's part of the experience.
I had an “idealistic” day like that today at an organization where I’ve been helping off and on for the past five years. Now that I speak Spanish fluently, I feel a responsibility to help out with discipline, especially knowing that the staff there is overworked and, as we say in Spanish, probably “hasta la madre” (they’ve had it “up to here”). The boys were picking on a fellow compañero with some physical and mental disabilities, and I, for the life of me, could not get them to leave him alone. The staff didn’t discipline, and of course the boys didn’t pay any attention to me. So much for my idealistic expectations.
When we left our volunteer work for the day, I exploded, distraught with the negative treatment the boy was receiving and “hasta la madre” with the lack of discipline, interest/care and resources. But yet again, as other Casa HOY staff consoled me later in the evening, I was reminded that we are “on the road to change the world.” And sometimes we have to accept the road that we are on-- we can’t change the road and the world.
Remember, Mexico is NOT your home country (even if I now consider it as such). If you compare it to your home country and apply the same expectations you have there for your time here in Mexico, you’re going to come up short. The same standards in the US or Australia, for example, for childcare are totally different in other countries. That's not to say that it’s okay for these problems to exist but rather that they are part of your everyday volunteer experience and you can either harp on them or focus on the positive moments of the convivir part of your participatory travel.
Don’t give up on changing the world just because the world isn’t always ready to change. You might not be able to change the world of an organization, but you might be able to be the change in one person’s world.
