Sara, Maria, and Luci are three volunteers from ARCORES Spain who spent the month of July at the Santa Monica Home of the Augustinian Recollects in Fortaleza (Brazil). They have integrated themselves into the project’s daily life and participated in its atmosphere and total and complete disposition for the beneficiaries.
During July, the Santa Monica Home of the Augustinian Recollects in Fortaleza (Ceará, Brazil) received Sara, Maria, and Lucia, three volunteers from ARCORES Spain who have offered all their energy and service to the project that cares for girls and adolescents sent by the competent authorities after suffering or being at serious risk of suffering abuse, abandonment, exploitation or any attack on their fundamental rights. For the beneficiaries, the arrival of the volunteers represents moments of curiosity and expectations in the face of people with a completely different mentality: it helps them discover that the world is massive but that all people can connect and relate based on respect, affection, and empathy.
The three volunteers have shown with their actions and words that they have hearts full of love to share, as well as a willingness to serve. They integrated themselves into the Saint Monica Home’s daily activities and quickly overcame the barriers of mentality, customs, culture, age, or language.
Their enthusiasm has spread to the beneficiaries and collaborators of the Home. They brought a touch of adventurous spirit and an attractive and captivating personality to gain the beneficiaries’ trust. They have also happily shared their life experience, culture, and way of seeing reality.
A new language, a new culture, and new knowledge always open the minds of the beneficiaries, who generally come from exceptionally closed social spaces and with very few opportunities to know different worlds and people.
Precise dialogue, talking, and listening have been some of the most important contributions to the life of the Santa Monica Home. The beneficiaries are more than accustomed to their companions and the multidisciplinary care team that also practices professional treatment with them. Although emotional closeness and mutual affection exist, imposing limits, correction, or therapeutic professional treatment is also necessary.
The volunteers’ presence greatly relaxes the beneficiaries, as they are people with whom they can talk without the burden of knowing that later in their daily lives, specific results, values , or behaviors will be required of them. This creates new connections with many games, smiles, confidence, hugs, jokes, and laughter.
For the workers and collaborators of Saint Monica Home, the presence of foreign volunteers allows them to create new workspaces with the beneficiaries, to attend to or dedicate more time to other obligations and to talk with them, express concerns, request new points of view on specific cases, access different information about the beneficiaries and motivate each other.
The volunteers will indicate in due time what their personal experience has been like, what they have learned, and what they have taken away from Hogar Santa Mónica. They have left behind joy, gratitude, life experiences that will be remembered, and the open doors of the institution because they are now part of the Hogar Santa Mónica family.
Thank you for your presence.
