WHY I DECIDED TO VOLUNTEER We say we love Nature, but do we really care about it? We say we love people, but do we know what is going on around the world? Do we know something about pollution, hunger, slavery, illnesses, forced prostitution and child abuse? Maybe we know a lot of things, maybe we can watch a touching doumentary and feel deep emotions for an hour or two, but then we always go back to our little structured reality made of work, family, hobbies and stuff. I was growing up between school, family and friends, struggling with what...

Hello! I am Margarita, the result of a love between Colombia and Spain, a person curious about the world, an admirer of the different and a believer in human kindness. I am writing to share my story and encourage you if at any time you decide to take a different step in life. I grew up in the country of magical realism, a place for which I feel immensely grateful for having given me love, study and work at times when it was not always easy. After working more than 10 years in the corporate world and with great achievements,...

My personal journey as a Development Instructor with CICD My name is Agustina Bastías Solis, I am 28 years old and I am from Chile. I am currently at CICD waiting to restart my program that was interrupted in Botswana due to Covid 19, although my trip started much earlier. Before coming to CICD in July 2019, I was working in my country as a psychologist in programs related to the protection and the restitution of the rights of children with difficult backgrounds. At that time, my motivation for volunteering was related to acquiring new work experiences and growing personally...

An unexpected summer experience! By Sara Simson, Poverty Activist teacher at CICD My first experience as a Development Instructor (DI) teacher in CICD has been unusual; due to the pandemic my team and I, as all the rest of the world, were really affected by it. Our program had to change and we needed to readapt our life and activities to it. It wasn`t easy for any of us, but together we organised a new routine. Adapting to another daily life As everything else in the program, even the date of the travel to Africa had to change. The start...

Hey! My name is Tomás Cunha, I’m 25 years old and come from Portugal. I’m the current responsible for the garden here at CICD. I first arrived at this college almost 9 months ago. I had just finished my masters in Evolutionary Biology back in Lisbon. After several years of studies, I knew I wanted to experience something different from my reality until then. Something that pushed me a bit away from the course of actions I was taking. I needed to learn more about the world and also about me and what I want. I lived a quite privileged...

About the course “The Effects of Industrial Farming” This course is part of the curriculum for the Development Instructor teams, so they can gain a better understanding of the reasons for the huge economic inequality in the world today and why billions of people are living in such poverty – in spite of all the existing resources. After studying The Effects of Industrial Farming it was clear to us that some of the effects of industrial farming are: Rupture of the generational transmission of knowledge of uses and customs of natural resources and good practices. This makes us lose the...

About the course “Wars and Pollution” The consequences of the military on our environment are significant. How come that the huge military complex, that use a big part of state budgets and consume enormous amounts of oil and other resources, are not made to take their responsibility in cutting down to fight the Climate Crisis? To learn about this is one part of understanding the reasons for the Climate Crisis and the imbalance of our world.... My comments to the course “Wars and Pollution” By Iasmin Maionchi from Brazil, Development Volunteer 10 month February team 2020 Today we have studied...

Studies and workshops in our lock down CICD Hello, my name is Mel and I am a teacher at CICD. Today I write to tell you a bit about the past weeks and how we managed to continue with the programmes even in times of Covid-19. Let me tell you about how we rearranged the daily life in the safest way possible. At CICD we were around 30 people a month ago. We changed the whole set up of the school by dividing into 3 groups. 9 Development Instructors (DI-s) plus + 2 teachers are now living in Malawi building...

I remember the first day they told me that I would have to drive on the different side in the car. A challenge was presented and I overcame. And then came the next challenge: driving the van. Same as the car but with a few more meters of metal sheets. I was accompanied during the first few days and then I did it by myself. Satisfactorily I finished my four months of driving in the clothes collection. Good days and bad days! As I highlight freedom, enjoying your own company, being able to leave...

In the end of January our Poverty Activist team is travelling to join DAPP Zambia for 6 months as volunteers - in the ZAMFAM (Zambian Families) projects run by our partner DAPP (Development Aid for People to People) and prevention of malaria and diarrhoea, and in a boarding school for young adults in Nakambala. Before they left they wrote down some thoughts and expectations - and some advice! -  to share with you, while getting ready to continue on this new and fantastic experience....   Carla Barrado, Spain Hello World. I am Spanish and I am 24 years old. I...

Alvaro from Chile , volunteer in CICD-s 10 month August team 2019, shares his first impressions from living and volunteering in Amalika Teachers Training college & Pre-school project, run by DAPP Malawi - in "the Warm Heart of Africa"....and he reflects on the new perspective he got on his life until now. My first Impressions of Malawi We have ...

By Sara Simson, Development Instructor in DRH Lindersvolds Fighting with The Poor programme This program and the wealth of experiences that now I carry with me have changed me. The programme was 24 months in total, and 8 of them I spent in Malawi. If I think about how it all started, I realize how different I am. I started with a small idea of what I should have faced and learned in this program. A romantic idea of volunteering, childish and probably selfish. The first year was a fundamental part of my personal growth for different reasons. A year...

From the final report from May 2019 team - Pablo, Yessi, Beatriz and their teacher Miguel. “The beginning of our period here was about get introduced to the project and see how each area works. After a while, we started to understand in which way we could help. First of all, we started to learn about Humana India and the Anganwadi centers (Academies for Working Children). We were asked to make some suggestions about cleaning, organisation and educational activities or games for children, in order to help staff and improve children's environment." Sunil, the project leader, also asked us to...

By Juan Manuel (Pampa), Cristiana and Juan Arrellano, August 2018 Poverty Activist team About Mumena Child Aid and Agriculture production DAPP started the operation in Mumena in 1987, implementing a project related with youth development and production centre. Currently there are coexisting two different projects of DAPP: the agriculture production project and Child Aid Mumena. The project in Mumena is working in 8 of the 10 lines of the Child Aid projects. Some of the main activities that DAPP is developing are: supporting many families organised in Village Action Groups and youth clubs, working with 14 community preschools and 10...

From Oxana Morari, Paola Gomez, Solveig Niitra / Poverty Activist team February 2019 After a long travel, we finally set foot in Mozambique. We were taken to the ADPP (Humana People to People in Mozambique) Headquarters, where we received a warm welcome from the whole ADPP team. The two following days were spent participating in the building weekend, where our team of three worked together with EPF Maputo. It was then when we started to get a sense of what these next six months are going to be like for us. These were the days we spent with virtually no...

Our Poverty Activist team is about to leave to their 6 months service period in Mozambique !! It is a time of emotions and satisfaction feeling! In their 5 months of training they got to know better their team mates with whom they will go to the project. At this moment there are 3 teams, 1 trio and 2 duos, ready to start their service period with all the achievements they have got. One trio is going to work in DNS Macuze, North Mozambique in Zambezia province. DNS Macuze started its activities in 2001 with the...

Our Climate Activist Team has arrived in India and being introduced to the people and the work. Yessi, Bea, Pablo and their teacher Miguel, have started to visit different projects run by Humana People to People India (HPPI) to work hand in hand with this organization that is the partner of CICD and a very nice host for our volunteers. This organisation has been working in India for more than 20 years, creating development through the implementation of the projects that aim at transferring knowledge, skills and capacity to individuals who need assistance; integrated projects in...

On Monday, eight people from the previous Gaia team became Development Instructors. I am the youngest of those eight. I am Solveig from Estonia and I recently turned twenty. I arrived here in the end of September and am now a part of the February Poverty Activist team. All of us have contrasting aims for coming to England, but mine is probably a bit different from my teammates. I feel like I am not as accomplished as the people in my team. I only finished high school last year and have not really started my life as an adult yet...

By Zsolt Gyarmati, Hungary, Fighting with The Poor 21 months programme Earlier I had a decent job in the capital of Hungary, I rented an apartment, had a car, had friends and all the “normal” stuff. However I wasn’t satisfied with my life. So I decided to change my life maybe not permanently, but entirely. I wanted to do something meaningful in this rushing and money-centered world. My goal now is to make other people’s life better. If I can make only one single life better, I will be really happy. So I decided to go on a journey and...

Hello Beautiful people, I am writing to you to let you know what CATs are doing in India. I will start with the 1st group - Svenja, Letizia and Alexandra – volunteering at Biogas Project in Dausa (Rajasthan) . Beside participating in the daily routines of the project such as visiting biogas plants and participating in the meetings with local communities and facing the language barrier, this group is also in charge of creating a simple step-by-step illustrated guidebook. This guidebook contains instructions of how to build a biogas plant, as well as information about the benefits of biogas, common...