First week at Abriendo Mentes

May 22, 2012

Abriendo Mentes, Costa Rica
Amara Stuehling

Today was the first full workday I have seen at Abriendo Mentes since people were away last week and I only arrived on Thursday. This morning we had a staff meeting with all of the volunteers and I went to all of the kids’ classes in the afternoon. I also had my first meeting with Meradith, the director of AM, about my goals and interests in my time here.  I didn’t get to start many of the tasks I am working on because the internet was out this afternoon, so I am writing from home on my computer (I can use the internet tomorrow to post this). Now that I know a little bit more about the organization, I wanted to explain some of the programs that run weekly and some...

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Preparing for Liftoff

May 22, 2012

In the past few weeks my grandfather and I have been taking a lot, as we're left in the house while my parents are at work and my brother is at school. He loves to talk politics, sometimes sounding just like the radio hosts on "Radio Mambi" (a popular Cuban radio station in Miami). So in the midst of a conversation about the benefits of a Republican economic system, he quoted Confucius… “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.” Although it may not have been his intention, it helped me to find a new way of looking at my trip to India.  Till recently I explained my trip as community enrichment project, where...

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wonderful experiences in Tanzania with TYCEN

May 22, 2012

TANZANIA YOUTH CULTURAL EXCHANGE NETWORK(TYCEN), Tanzania
Winfrida Abel

I’m winfrida Abel from Belgium a past volunteer from TYCEN project 2011. At the very onset I must say a huge Thank you to TYCEN organizing team for allowing me to have these wonderful experiences in Tanzania through volunteer project. It is real difficult to put in writing everything I experienced while volunteering with TYCEN.  Anyway, I would like to share my volunteer experiences with TYCEN in a beautiful country known as Tanzania, I joined the project in August 2011, the program had a total of 15 participants both Local and International volunteers. As Participants we were involved in a community project surrounding the construction of classrooms for a local school in Mwanga-Kilimanjaro organized and hosted by TYCEN TANZANIA and the Local Government. This project was designed to help support a...

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Public Education-Just Scratching the Surface

May 21, 2012

Americans can you image how your life would be if you weren't offered free public education? Would your family be able to support you? Would you be in a position to start your own family and support them? Ask yourself these questions the next time you don't feel like getting out of bed for school, or even worse when you are thinking about dropping out of school. I am telling you this because many people take free public education for granted. In Ghana free public education is offeresd through junior high (middle school) after that a person must pay for school. Just imagine being fourteen or fifteen years old and having your entire life ahead of you, but having all of that taken away because your family can't afford to send you...

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Fundraising for Supplies for Brattleboro Nurses in Nicaragua

May 20, 2012

Hospital Escuela, Nicaragua
Debra Kitzmiller

Another huge aspect to our preparations was gathering supplies and donations for our trip. The doctors at the hospital had given us a short list of supplies that were needed, and we were compiling our own list of breastfeeding and teaching materials that we needed. We didn’t know how much money we needed, but we figured we better start fundraising in order to purchase the materials.One of the best things that we did was start a facebook page. We called it Brattleboro Nurses in Nicaragua, and encouraged our friends to share and like our page, to increase our visibility. We also figured out how to put a “fundrazr” tab on our facebook page, to make it easier for people to make donations. In the end,...

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Putting together a course on lactation, in Spanish

May 20, 2012

Hospital Escuela, Nicaragua
Debra Kitzmiller

So here we were, 3 nurses from Vermont scrambling to pull together a 5 day course on lactation to teach to a group of nurses at a hospital in Nicaragua. This part of the story actually makes me very proud.We started researching like crazy, mostly using the internet. We read about breastfeeding worldwide and its impact on global health. We learned about the current climate of breastfeeding in Nicaragua, including statistics for breastfeeding initiation and continuation rates. We discovered that their national government was making public statements on the importance of breastfeeding for improving the health of women and babies, but at the same time were giving out free formula to government workers (a counterproductive measure, if you are trying to improve breastfeeding success.) We...

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A Journey of Personal Growth

May 20, 2012

Lha Charitable Trust, India
Dane Holding

I won't lie, I was fairly apprehensive about travelling to India for the first time. It would be the first time I'd left The United States in 24 years (save the occasional trip to the Butterfly Conservatory in Niagara Falls). I'd graduated from college recently, and was trying to evade the seeming inevitable necessity of submitting to the system in place in my country which requires me to give up all of my aspirations for the sake of a paycheck. A good friend of mine recommended that I travel to McLeod Ganj specifically to volunteer, and after a bit of research, I was able to locate Lha through The Volunteer Tibet Website.I was picked up by Lha's representative at Delhi international airport, and after a (rather brutal) bus trip to...

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How "Brattleboro Nurses in Nicaragua" came to be

May 20, 2012

Hospital Escuela, Nicaragua
Debra Kitzmiller

As my first Omprakash post, I am going to try to recapture a bit from a very magical time in my life: a time when a dream of an adventure outside of my normal life turned into a reality. I had been talking with a group of local women, all of us wanting to explore the possibility of international volunteer work. Most of us had traveled, or volunteered before, but most of us had families with young children and careers that made it feel a little farfetched to incorporate an international trip into our lives. At least, that’s how I felt.Originally we were 7 women, but as our meetings progressed we whittled ourselves down to three of us, who work together as nurses in a hospital based...

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Arrival adventures in Costa Rica

May 20, 2012

Abriendo Mentes, Costa Rica
Amara Stuehling

It’s been just two days since I left the U.S. and so much has happened already! I arrived yesterday at my host family in Portero, where I will be teaching English for the next 3 months. Since so much has happened in the first few days, I ‘m going to write about my stories and adventures so far. Most of this is about how what I did the first day in Costa Rica and how I got to Portero, so I'll post more soon that covers more about Abriendo Mentes and what I'll be doing here. Here's an overview of my first few days:Monday:My adventures really began Monday night when I realized that I was going to Costa Rica in the morning. With all of the whirlwind packing, moving, finishing...

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1 week down, 7 more weeks to go!

May 19, 2012

It’s beyond storming outside so I figured there’s no time better than now to give you guys a little update on what I’ve been doing for the past week:I’ve attended my first “Fante” language class (and I have my second one coming up this week), but living with a homestay family and getting myself around town has taught me much more than the limits of my hour lessons are even able to. There are over 50 languages spoken in Africa, but Fante is the one mainly spoken in the central region. I am now able to get myself around town by talking to a few people here and there, I’m able to tell someone my name, ask them where they’re going, ask them how they’re doing, tell them how I’m...

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