A Brief Overview of My Experience with Amigos

Amigos is a wonderfully unique program. Most of the volunteers are high schoolers who are looking for overseas service work. Unlike many other service programs, the volunteers do not stay in a large, organized group but rather are split into pairs and sent to live with host families in rural communities. The volunteers have a lot of flexibility in the type of projects they initiate. Several years ago, I spent my sophomore summer of high school with the program in Veraguas, Panama.

My partner and I spent the first few weeks visiting families in the community and talking to them about what sort of project they'd like to see. Eventually we held a town meeting. It was a pretty good turn out- about one hundred people. I was sixteen and all of a sudden I was in front of a classroom of busy community members trying to facilitate a discussion in a foreign language. No doubt, I was very nervous and felt under qualified to be initiating a community wide project. We decided to build a sidewalk around the school so kids would stop slipping in the mud and glass. It took eight weeks but at the end I felt empowered. The community had surprised us with a beautiful despedida. The students coordinated dances and puppet shows. We ended the day with an all night dance festival.

Readjusting to the states was difficult - I missed my host family, my partner, the students. However, I felt more empowered then I had ever been. And that's the point of the program - to empower our generation to get out of the box, build valuable relationships with people and take the initiative to improve our communities. If there was ever a program that built awesome young leaders, Amigos would be it.