SI MONTHLY NEWS August 2006 Experiences
From SI Exco News
Malawi Youth helps the world
Saulo PHIRI – the young volunteer from Cape
MacClear (Ireland travel report, July 2006) has
returned to Malawi. Saulo (who had never left
Malawi before or flown in a plane), flew off to
Kenya after helping Bangwe based youth NGO –
AYISE prepare the foundation for a new sports
centre in Namiyango as part of a workcamp. In
Kenya he attended his first international workcamp
helping empower women and build community
buildings. Speaking to our reporter Saulo
commented ‘Nairobi was enormous, busy and noisy, it scared me, but then I got to London and the size of that city was difficult to believe. Its been a roller-coaster year for me. I have worked very hard and been to places and countries I only dreamt of seeing and felt the cold that almost froze my breath! People were very kind to me but I never forgot my home and promoted it wherever I went and was very proud of my country’. Saulo cared for disadvantaged youth in the Welsh valleys in the UK and created foot paths in the Snowdonia
National Park footing 10km a day in winter
weather. He left the UK in October to complete
conservation volunteer work with the NGO
Concordia in France, in Germany and renovation
with Lunaria in Italy. He returned to the UK in
December 2005, to complete a 3-volunteer month
placement with the United Nations Exchange,
which saw him leading youth activities and
promoting third world development issues by
talking to students in local schools. His efforts
were covered by newspapers and he promoted the
idea of Fair Trade for African-made products. His
last workcamp was in Southern England with the
workcamp group Concordia-UK and ended in a
street festival and a 10km fun run which he
completed to raise funds for a local school.
Surprisingly his favourite place was Israel because
the peace volunteers of an organisation called
Servas were so keen to host him. There he spent a
2 week holiday, staying in Haifa – the town of
recent Hezbollah bombing from Lebanon.
Speaking from his home in Blantyre he told Young
N’ Free, I am delighted to be home and I hope I have challenged British and Europeans perceptions of African youth. We have high unemployment in Malawi and I think volunteering is a way of getting experience and exposure.
I think there is a lot that can be learnt from voluntary work and it needs to be seen more positively by young people and parents need to encourage and give it more support’.
Saulo was an outgoing volunteer for the Bangwe based NGO called AYISE and worked with their partner organisations abroad. AYISE’s MWAI programme runs 2-4week social projects which can see youth from Malawi and worldwide take part in volunteer activities, such building schools houses in rural areas, tree planting, conservation in national parks, renovation of orphanages etc. For those interested volunteering, helping in leading, sponsoring please contact AYISE on ayise[at]malawi.net or visit their officers in Bangwe or contact Saulo PHIRI on phirisaulo[at]yahoo.com
Hungarian view of British AGM
Dear Ann and John
Thank you ever so much for the possibility of joining your Servas AGM this year. It was a unique experience for me.
I had a SUPERB weekend with all of you and I did feel part of such friendly and lovely British Servas Family, which I did appreciate very much, especially because I am quite far from my homeland. I was so glad to see smiling faces all the time around me that weekend. That was very nice indeed to met both of you, other new hosts and my old (meaning not the age!) Servas friends with whom I have stayed but I had not seen for over 10 years.
Thank you once again for a BRILLIANT weekend.
Valèria Erdõs, Hungary
(Note: It was thanks to Valèria that we had the Language page in Hungarian in May 2006. Ed.)
Translators needed - please!
I am looking for a team of up to 24 Spanish speakers to translate SI News 2007 into Spanish. I have a few people so far but the more we have the easier it is for everybody. Please let me know that you can help by emailing me on: jgiffould[at]aol.com or newsletter[at]servas.org
Muchas gracias.
uploaded by Amelia
