Want a deeper insight into what an ICS placement looks like? Read the amazing blogs written by our past and present volunteers. Enjoy the journey!
As the sun was setting, lighting up the streets of Monimbo in the most wonderful shades of yellow and orange, the volunteers made their way to celebrate La Gritería. La Gritería is a Nicaraguan festival celebrated in the honour of the Purísima Concepción de María. This religious festival is celebrated in the majority of towns and cities of Nicaragua, having special relevance in León where it originated.
We arrive at the Carrizal School, everyone’s feeling slightly nervous as this was our first school talk and we were unsure what the response was going to be. Getting the children´s attention was not a problem as all eyes were on us from the moment we stepped onto the playground, carrying giant paper trees, litter costumes and hats.
As we all approach the half-way point of our volunteer work at four weeks, all the volunteers prepare for the mid-term evaluation. The mid-term evaluation is when everyone reflects on the work they have achieved thus far, how we have fulfilled our roles, challenges we have encountered, and the solutions to them. Progressio had arranged for all of us to go to Managua where the presentations would be hosted in a hotel.
As the train pulled into Wellingborough station I was filled with excitement. The long wait to meet my team and find out what our project would be in Zimbabwe was finally over! Walking towards the waiting room I turned to see another train pulling into the station and a group of people who I recognised from the Progressio assessment days stepped off the train. As we introduced ourselves we were thrown into the excited chatter about where we had travelled from and our expectations for the weekend ahead.
For international youth day British and Honduran volunteers organised and carried out an event in the rural community of La Asomada. The turnout was great, with many people coming from the surrounding villages such as El Tablon, El Zapote and Catatao to name a few.
After a long drive we found ourselves at Tilimbike Support Group in a remote part of Nkhotakota district. The group was composed of two separate sections, an adult support group as well as a children’s therapy group. We received the customary warm welcome from our hosts, with a song and dance putting an immediate smile on all of our faces, before personal introductions from the group members and the Progressio volunteers.
Since we started working in Masaya the one thing we've been talking about all the time is communication. We are constantly learning to communicate better with the other volunteers, our Nicaraguan families, and the wider community in El Pochote. Now, rather than just nodding and smiling when my Nicaraguan abuela is telling a joke, I can actually understand and laugh along with everyone.
We've been teaching English classes to the kids in El Pochote and Monimbo for over a month now and it's really amazing to see how much they are improving. There are seven classes over the two schools. Each class has either one or two lessons a week and are taught by two or three UK volunteers and two or three Nicaraguan volunteers in each class.
Another week has nearly passed, with the British volunteers in Gracias still involved in their community work. The outer, rural communities surrounding the town of Gracias are somewhat isolated from the wider world. The inhabitants’ closest source of modernity is the nearby town, in which we are based. The young people of the villages follow the latest fashions, with high tech mobile devices, designer label clothing, and in the case of the males, carefully attended hairstyles. Despite all this their living conditions probably have not changed much since the 1980's.
On the 22nd of July the UK hosted the very first Girls Summit in Partnership with UNICEF. 'A future free from Female Genital Mutilation and Child/Forced Marriage' is what acted as the basis of the summit and proved to be a significant turning point for the international awareness of these two very widely practised customs. In response to UNICEF's own campaigning #YouthForChange, our ICS Progressio team created a short 15 second video at Kambanje Secondary school in Phalombe where we filmed a class of students expressing their own varying definitions of what freedom meant.
