Volunteering in Argentina

Article by: Sarah Gilbert, March 2008

On a warm summer day in Buenos Aires, a veritable United Nations of volunteers had bussed it to one of the city's outer suburbs to help repaint a community centre. The yellow walls of the small hall bore the smudges of lively games and were hung with children's art projects.

'OK, I need a painting underboss,' said Nate Galea, coordinator of the work day. 'Who wants to volunteer?'

An ex-opera singer from the United States stepped up - she certainly looked professional in her paint-smeared overalls - and the team went to work scrubbing the walls.

The Conviven community centre is just one of many organisations in Argentina that welcomes a steady stream of volunteers from abroad who offer their time in exchange for a richer travelling experience.

Clara Pugmire, a 19-year-old from England, did some searching on the internet for a volunteer opportunity while she was planning her trip.

'It's a great experience to have,' she says, 'and since I'm coming to Argentina to travel, I have some time to give help where it's needed.'

She found the website of Help Argentina, a non-profit organisation that supports Argentine NGOs by raising funds from abroad and placing volunteers.

On her way to Crecer con Amor, a children's centre on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Clara was busy trying to memorise which trains and buses to take for the one-hour journey that she'd make every day for the next month. Jon Teel, volunteer director at Help, was there to help her out on her first day.

'There's definitely a trend that we're noticing - the more foreigners that are coming down here, the more there are who are interested in supplementing their language studies or their travel with a volunteer experience,' says Jon. Help Argentina has now placed more than 300 volunteers among its dozens of member organisations.

Most of the kids have never seen a foreigner and gaze wide-eyed at the tall, blonde and blue-eyed Europeans who speak to them in halting, accented Spanish.

Staff at Crecer say the centre benefits in many ways from the volunteers. They bring energy and ideas on how to entertain and engage the kids, most of whom have never seen a foreigner and gaze wide-eyed at the tall, blonde and blue-eyed Europeans who speak to them in halting, accented Spanish. Some volunteers go back home to their own countries and help raise money for the centre, so that it can build more rooms and help more children and teenagers in the neighbourhood.

Of course, the volunteers benefit too, mostly from the affectionate Argentine welcome they receive from the kids.

'Some volunteers have told us that in their own countries, you can't get so close to the children if you're working with them. Here, the kids run up to the volunteers and hug them!' says Jonatan Quiroga, a teacher at Crecer.

Buenos Aires' growing expat community is also getting more involved in volunteer work.

'The gap in wealth in Argentina makes you feel uneasy,' says Annabelle McDonald, a 27-year-old journalist from Sydney, Australia, who moved to Buenos Aires almost a year ago. 'Coming over with dollars had meant I was able to eat out, catch taxis and basically live a very easy life. But after a while I got over it. I wanted to sink my teeth into a project, give my Spanish learning a big boost and see a bit of the country.'

Annabelle found a placement in Salta, a provincial capital in the northwest of Argentina, and was hosted by a local family.

'They were an amazing family,' she said. 'It was a great experience because they came from a completely different part of society than the people I knew in Buenos Aires.'

'I wanted to sink my teeth into a project, give my Spanish learning a big boost and see a bit of the country.'

But the volunteer experience didn't quite meet Annabelle's expectations. Her job was to take care of a group of children while their mothers ran the neighbourhood soup kitchen, but it didn't work out as planned.

'The soup kitchen was being renovated, so the facility was closed down for most of the duration of my stay. It was relocated to someone's house. It was small and it was impossible for me to entertain the kids there.'

She felt especially let down by the fact that she'd paid a hefty fee for her placement. Many organisations that offer placements do so at a price. Help Argentina is not-for-profit, and $100 of its $450 fee goes to the host organisation; the rest cover administrative costs, but plenty of other outfits offer the service in order to make money, which irks some would-be volunteers.

'I'd looked into doing volunteering but it was way too expensive,' said Trione Larkin, 30, from Ireland. She was delighted to hear about the painting day at Conviven, organised by the South American Explorer's Club, a travellers' resource centre that has branches in BA, Quito, Lima and Cuzco.

As well as organising one volunteer day per month in which anyone can participate, the club keeps a list of organisations who want volunteers' help, making it easy for travellers to pick the one that suits them, and get in touch - without having to pay a fee.