Be ready for personal growth

If you travel to another part of the world and dive into a completely different culture, you throw yourself out into the cold water. This might sound scary but it is exactly what you should do and what made my volunteering experience the success it was. Working in a program like this has a positive impact on the world but also on yourself. It opens your eyes to what is really going on in the world, what problems other people face, and how important it is to do something about it.

I had just graduated highschool and never travelled outside of Europe before, so my time in the Caribbean presented me many new impressions and challenges. All of them made me grow personally and learn a lot in a short period of time. The focus of my team was on working with organic farming and even though I didn't know much about the topic when I joined the program, after a few weeks I was able to teach others about it and build organic home gardens for local families.

But the knowledge is only one thing. All the experiences I got, the friendships I made and the gratitude of the people I received are probably worth even more. It fills me with joy to know that a poor woman will soon have a source of income because of the garden I built for her and to see how happy she was about that. Even though the program was only a small part of my journey, it created many lasting memories and made an impact on me and on the people I worked with.