The Andes Way: Volunteering in Argentina

Last summer, I spent 6 weeks volunteering in Córdoba, Argentina through AIESEC's Educar program. I worked as a teacher at a small community center in the impoverished Barrio Guiñazú, where I taught English, supervised the children, tutored/helped the children with their homework and acted as a positive role model in a situation where they may have not had one. The community center provided free care for disadvantaged children as their parents worked, etc.

In short, those 6 weeks were some of the best weeks of my life.

I loved the children and the women I worked with at the community center. They welcomed me, embraced me and took me in as one of their own. I fell in love with Argentina and the culture. I was supported by the AIESEC committee in Córdoba and got to know the members of the committee very well. I stayed in a hostel, where I quickly befriended kids my age from all over the world. I traveled every weekend. My best friends were from Mexico, Brazil, Scotland and France, and I still keep daily contact with them almost a year later.

Because this project was 2 months long, I was able to see the kids' progress and the impact I was making. As cliched as it is, I left Argentina a changed (for the better) woman!

I always recommend an AIESEC exchange to anyone I meet who is considering going abroad. I can confidently say that my AIESEC exchange changed my life in an amazing way.

I had the amazing opportunity to volunteer in Buenos Aires this past summer, and I would never take it back. It was the opportunity for me to get to know about another culture and breakdown a mindset I had about South America.

This NGO, Sonrisas, was in an impoverished part of the city that needed improvement for the community & social environment. Every day I would collect donations to provide for families and develop confidence in children through school lessons and coaching sports. Seeing the joy that AIESEC could bring to these children made every single minute of my experience worth it.

I would go back to this program any day. This experience helped me realize how much of an impact I can really make in this world, and today I am helping to bring in more AIESECers to my local committee and send them abroad to projects like Andes Way.