Past Volunteer Stories

If you are thinking about volunteering yourself, you surely ask yourself what kind of an experience volunteering at CENIT is. To give you a better idea, we have asked some of our past volunteers to share their stories.

Read about:

• Emilia from France, who worked in the Street Outreach program and gave English and literacy classes
• Magnus from Germany, who worked in CEA and redesigned the website
• Merel from the Netherlands, who worked in the Street Outreach program and CEA
• Sara from the United States, who worked in the Street Outreach program and for Adopt-a-Dream

Emilia

My name is Emilia, I am 23 years old and I am from France. I decided to come to CENIT for three months right after I graduated from University. Volunteering in an organization dealing with children's rights and education was an experience I really wanted to gain.

The various programs I participated in each had their own interesting particularities. The most important was the Street Outreach Program – working with small children in the markets near CENIT. I really enjoyed this project as it was a good opportunity to get to know better the reality of their lives and have a direct impact on their everyday life. It is very rewarding to see progress in some of the children and to see how they enjoy playing and learning with us. I also gave English classes to girls aged 12 to 14 once a week and one-to-one literacy classes to women. The literacy project was very interesting since it had an actual impact on the womens' life. Being able to read, write and count makes the women feel much more independent and self-reliant.

What I liked the most about working at CENIT is the very lively and optimistic atmosphere and the high representation of Ecuadorian staff. While volunteering at CENIT, trying to communicate and integrate as much as possible with the local staff will help you make the most of your time here. I totally recommend volunteering with CENIT, it is an amazing experience!

Magnus

My name is Magnus, I am 22 years old and I am from Germany. I had just graduated from university before I came to CENIT. Instead of starting to work right away, I was looking for a change of perspective. CENIT was just that: something completely different for four months.

In the morning, I worked in CEA, CENIT's tutoring center. I usually worked with the sixth graders, helping them with whatever homework they have. This includes all their subjects: mathematics, Spanish language, sciences or whatever else their teachers come up with. It was a challenging but unbelievably rewarding job — and you get to revise a lot of that basic math you surely forgot! In my first week, the volunteer coordinator was also looking for somebody to help with the website. Since I was an IT major in college, I immediately said I would do it — and ended up completely redesigning the whole page. I hope you like it! Oh, and if you find any problems, I am still responsible for its maintenance, so just email me.

Working in CENIT is great and I do not regret going there for one second. If you consider volunteering, come with an open mind, an open heart and consider this: don't plan to stay for just two months – it's simply not enough time and changing your return flight to stay longer — as many people end up doing — is expensive!

Merel

My name is Merel, I am 22 years old and I am from the Netherlands. I study social work at the University of Rotterdam. For my 3rd year internship I decided to go to a foreign country for 6 months, so I would be able to experience another way of social work, within a different culture and economic structure. In Ecuador I was able to meet a different kind of people that you could never find in the Netherlands: people that live in real poverty, that beg for money or sell sweets on the street just to make enough money to eat. My school was already in contact with CENIT and put me in touch with them.

When I got to Quito I started by taking Spanish classes for two weeks. After that, I started working in the Mayorista market and in CEA, a homework help program. I enjoyed my work, especially the market, where my co-workers and I worked with a group of 25 children. We did activities like washing hands, brushing teeth, singing and playing games with educational themes. It was quite an experience, being so close to something so unknown.

You want to do so much but sometimes cultural difference and economic possibilities seem to block the way. Changing peoples' lives takes time. So if you come over don't forget that sometimes it feels like things could have been done better, quicker, or with more care. But maybe that’s just because you are used to that. Being in Ecuador is a different way, with a different lifestyle – so take your time!

Sara

My name is Sara, I am 22 years old and a volunteer from the United States. When I was 18 and in my first year of university, I met an ex-CENIT volunteer in my student center. He was selling some of the products made by women in CENIT's workshops and talking to students to raise awareness of the organization. At that point, I was so excited to hear about the programs that CENIT was running for working children and their families that I wanted to quit school and come straight down to Ecuador to volunteer! However, I had never lived outside of my country before and didn't speak great Spanish, so my parents convinced me to stay in school, take Spanish classes and apply for a scholarship to do international social work.

I got the scholarship and between my second and third years of university, I spent three months volunteering for CENIT in the street outreach program. I was working with young children in the Santa Maria neighborhood who spent their whole day selling fruits, vegetables and candy in the busy and polluted streets of southern Quito. I had an amazing time: the kids were full of life, love and curiosity and I found everyone at CENIT to be extremely hardworking, motivated and enthusiastic about CENIT's work – from the international group of volunteers working in the streets, to the Ecuadorian teachers and social workers, to the nuns in charge of the organization. I also felt like the work CENIT was doing was really valuable and a real service to the people of southern Quito.

After graduating, I spent a year in New York City working for a number of different non-profits but I was a little restless with my work. I wanted to find something that felt really, truly rewarding and where I could make a concrete difference. So I decided to take on one more job (my fourth!) and save money to come back out to Ecuador and work with CENIT. For the last nine months, I've been working with CENIT's sponsorship program, Adopt-a-Dream, that pairs the brightest and most desperately needy students from CENIT's programs with godparents in the United States and Europe. In the next year or two, I will probably go back to school or look for a similar line of work in the United States. For now, though, I feel really lucky to be able to contribute positively to a very special organization and to work with amazing people from all over the world!