How good came out of my disaster!

by Alex
(Mozambique)

I first volunteered in my first year summer of university. I went with a british organisation to an orphanage in Mpumalanga, South Africa.

I enjoyed every single bit of the 6 weeks I spent there. I worked as an HSS (then geography) teacher in a local combined school, teaching grade 9, and the results for my modules were exceptionally high. After school, I played with children at the haven, going on walks in the local area, reading stories, doing food pick ups and baking cakes. There were a lot of tears when I had to leave.

I actually enjoyed the experience so much, that I returned the next year, and worked as a carer for the children, this time staying for 2 months. And then the following year, when I graduated, I arranged to spend a year working and helping out on the farm and at the children's haven, and organising for a group of British volunteers to visit the haven and help there too.

That is when it all went wrong. The childen had grown up into young men and women, and the middle-aged south african guy, who was the son of the 'mummy' of the house was living there too. I started hearing snide stories about myself (well, what I could translate from Afrikaans!), and being expected to collaborate in some, let me say, not so legal practise that went on. As my Afrikaans improved, my understanding grew, and I was far from happy. The children were wonderful but the 'responsible' adults, not so. In the end, a row and a fight left me sore and sorry, but I left.

Now, a couple of years on, I am engaged, and my fiance and I have started our own volunteer organisation in Zavora, Mozambique. We have based the organisation of our place and projects on the terrible experience that I had as a single woman volunteering alone in an African environment. We have made sure that every problem that was present in my own volunteer experience has been tackled, and as such now have a successful organisation that recruits many women from all over the globe. We have had only good responses, feedback and success in our projects.

It took a disasterous experience of my own to create a great organisation. I experienced the problems myself, and am now able to ensure that when under my care, other people do not.

Alex
www.mozvolunteers.com