Volunteering 2024 in Sierra Leone. ARCORES. Augustinian Recollects.

Last summer, Marimar and Sebastián volunteered with ARCORES in Kamalo and Kamabai, Sierra Leone. They are from Chiclana de la Frontera and former students of the Saint Augustine High School of the Augustinian Recollects in their hometown.

Marimar is 25 years old, a psychologist, and came to international cooperation volunteering through the Augustinian Recollects, whom she met at the Saint Augustine High School, where she studied. This educational center in Chiclana de la Frontera, Cadiz, opens the horizons of its students to solidarity and there are frequent campaigns to support missions and missionaries.

“The Augustinian Recollects gave me a lot of confidence to experience volunteering. In addition, I wanted to learn from and help the people of Sierra Leone,” she says. In the African country she was received “as if I were part of their family.” For her part, she was “open-minded to learn from them and that this learning would later serve me in my daily life.”

Marimar explains that in the mornings they had scheduled activities to support schools and projects and, in the afternoons, with the excuse of supporting the children in learning English, they created this atmosphere of trust, affection and attention.

“Volunteering is highly recommended. I think that I will especially share with my friends and family the learning of humanity that Sierra Leone has given me, and I will also raise awareness in my environment so that, from our place, we can contribute our grain of sand to end inequality and poverty. This experience has made me rethink many things.”

Sebastián is also 25 years old, is from Chiclana de la Frontera, Cadiz, and a former student of the Saint Augustine High School of the Augustinian Recollects in his hometown.

“I wanted to live a new experience, get to know a culture completely different from mine and contribute as much as I could. They welcomed me spectacularly, I never imagined such a warm welcome from people who were a priori completely different and strange to me.”

For Sebastián, volunteering allows him to grow as a person, to learn about local communities and their culture, about the people who accompany these communities as missionaries and to contribute something positive through daily tasks as a volunteer group.

“Now I can tell about all that experience full of activities, learning, talking about people’s behavior and cultural differences, about the happiness that the children transmitted at all times… We must do everything in our power to build a better world: go on a volunteering trip far away, or raise awareness in your circle of acquaintances and give visibility to excluded and disadvantaged people.”

Four volunteers left this summer with the help of ARCORES, the Augustinian-Recollect International Solidarity Network, for Sierra Leone, where the Augustinian Recollects have two communities, Kamalo and Kamabai, both located in the Northern Province.

Much of their work has been to accompany the rural population that the Recollect religious serve. To do this they have had to make a great effort to adapt to being immersed in ancient traditions and customs, unknown to them, and a social environment that is absolutely different from anything they had known before.

To respect these traditions, they had to begin by visiting community leaders, a way of obtaining their “placet” before making direct contact with the population. The imam of Kamalo gave them a goat as a sign of welcome.

One of the central points of the work of the Augustinian Recollects in this Muslim-majority region is the management of rural schools. At that time, the Saint Paul High School in Kamalo was immersed in the exam period for the oldest students.

With one of their teachers, they managed to meet with a local women’s association and discuss the management of microcredits that are offered so that women have support in their self-sustainability projects.

The four volunteers also helped plant trees near the water wells, as they help maintain the water table in the dry season, stabilize the soil and help maintain the quality of the water by preventing sediment from contaminating the lower levels, facilitating natural filtering.

At the Our Lady of Africa High School in Kamabai, they helped renovate the school, specifically by painting and taking advantage of the opportunity to organize a fun and creative painting workshop with the children, who left a big heart on the wall with their own hands.

This support for the children is crucial, because in general they do not receive much attention from adults. Eating, playing, dancing, listening to their wishes and needs and creating a personal bond with each one helps them in their self-esteem and growth.

The Bishop of Makeni, Bob John Hassan Koroma, welcomed the four volunteers and the Recollect religious who accompanied them during their stay in the country, talking with them and offering a profound reflection on the situation in the country and the region. He is originally from Kamabai and studied at the Recollect school.

The volunteers were able to certify that Sierra Leonean society currently has an exemplary coexistence between Muslims and Christians, on the one hand, and between the different ethnic groups and tribes, on the other; and they also saw with their own eyes the role of the Catholic Church with its commitment to faith in its communities and its social and humanitarian commitment to all Sierra Leoneans, regardless of their creed.