A volunteer is “a person who does something, especially helping other people, willingly and without being forced or paid to do it”. Cambridge Dictionary.

And what I´m doing? This is the most important question that we are always doing here. They don´t need you, they can continue without you, you are not a worker so you are just supporting, without you everything is the same, or not?

The magic of been volunteer are the questions that appears in the road and in all the steps that you take.

Sometimes we are looking for answers, when the most important think to learn and share is to create the correct questions. Finally, you can make your own answer but the true is that the environment is to diverse so there is not only one true, you had to choose by your own, and enrich your knowledge with contradictions. Thereby, we create more questions.

I´m volunteer so I had to do something, what can I do? I answer first. But how can I know what to do If I don’t know where I am? How can I help If I can´t communicate with all the people and I don’t know who they are? What are they needs? What can I do with these needs?

The first months are adaptation. It is really awesome to think that you can change the world when you arrive but is not realistic. There is motivation but without information about the environment without the relationship with the pupils and other workers is really difficult. Also, they had to adapt to you, they don’t know you!
Listen everything that is around you, look at the others, look what are the others doing, tried to understand them. Sometimes we need to do a lot of things to trust that we are learning and growing but sometimes we just need to live, observe with all the attention that we can our environment: our pupils, our feelings, people’s reactions, fears, aims, priorities, values, interests, relationships, history …

Step by step, they know you, they trust on you, so you can propose whatever you want. What I´m able to do? What are my aims here? What are the expectations of the people around me? Who I am? I´m a volunteer. Let’s find our own definition. Sorry I´m not giving answers, just questions, you had to answer by your own.