All around the world

In September our volunteers included individuals from
Belgium, The Netherlands, Japan and the U.K.

Part of the excitement of being at our African Impact projects in St Lucia is the lovely people from all around the world that you get to meet as a volunteer. Being part of a tight-knit group that lives and works together in the surrounding communities close to the volunteer house brings people together from many different countries around the globe.

Not only does volunteering help you network amongst individuals from around the world, but it also helps you make friends with people abroad! At any given time we can have staff and volunteers from over 10 countries residing in our house, which allows for some great conversations and healthy debate about what nationalities mean to each one of us.

Many of our volunteers are not English-speaking, and although we do operate in English, our staff can communicate in a number of different languages. Many volunteers succeed in improving their English skills whilst volunteering, particularly when they set this as a goal for themselves.

The following is a breakdown of where our volunteers in 2011 were from.

Celebrating National Women's Day in August - volunteers
and staff from the Netherlands, Canada, Ireland and Venezuela.

30% - British
28% - Dutch
14% - American
  6% - Canadian
  4% - Swedish
  3% - Australian

The other 15% was comprised of one or two volunteers from Belgium, Ireland, Israel, Venezuela, Switzerland, Spain, Japan and France.



"If you're not English/American/Canadian: The first week may be hard with your language. Don't be shy, even if you do a lot of mistakes (like I did), it's not a problem, you're here to learn so KEEP TALKING!" - Community Volunteer Mathilde, from France