My life as a volunteer

Throughout our lives we repeatedly hear that helping others is essential, but how often do we help others? We constantly think about ourselves and we don't care about the reality of disadvantaged people or in different situations. Volunteering is not just working in a soup kitchen delivering food, it is much more, it is a lifestyle.

Being a volunteer means knowing the reality and problems of others, trying to help without expecting a reward, but I assure you that in most cases there is a reward. I started as a volunteer when I was 14 years old in a group called Marcha from my old school, we went to the nursing homes and we accompanied the older with songs, dances or games. I was very happy to see the elderly enjoying themselves with us, they said “Please come back”, because for them we were a source of hope and energy much better than any medicine.

But my reality changed when I was 18 years old, I became a monitor for this same group (Marcha) and I have been accompanying children for three years. My goal in Marcha is to create a place where they can grow, learn to express themselves and get to know themselves better, a space in which topics that are forgotten at school are discussed, but the fundamental question is: how are we? .

In this group we separate the children by stages, the first is called “Amanecer”, they are children between 11 and 14 years old, It is a stage in which they enjoy playing games in which they work on emotional content or do social activities, for example we painted the school a few months ago.

The next stage is “Aventura”, I am the monitor of a group of 10 childen of 4º E.S.O and we have meetings every Friday, the main thing in our sessions is to feel heard and learn to listen, the monitors are in charge of accompanying them during the adolescence and find in us a person who they trust to ask their questions and tell the problems that they have at school, with their friends or with their family. One of my greatest rewards as a volunteer with children is the connection that you can create with them, you can be really important to them and they appreciate your advice and words.

But my vision as a volunteer changed in 2019, here in the association they gave us the option of signing up for a service experience, they could select us to go to different centers such as an orphanage in Lisbon, a geriatric center in Salamanca or a reformatory in Ponferrada, but i went to Villasecino (Babia), a town lost in the mountains of the province of León. Watch the video to hear the experience that changed my life, first a small summary with photos and then I talk about the experience: