I’ve just returned from an 8-month volunteering placement with Project Trust. From January to August 2024, I have been based in a rural municipality named Candelaria in the Lempira region of Honduras. Candelaria is a small town with a population of around 8000, around an hour from the border with El Salvador. Many of the residents work in construction or have agricultural jobs such as working in local coffee farms. Many from the area have migrated to work in the United States.
My project trust partner and I lived with a local family in their flat near the centre of town. They had four children, the two older boys were at college in another city, and they also had a cousin living with them. I chose this project so I could have the opportunity to build on my Spanish speaking knowledge after studying it for GCSE and A levels, as well as become part of a community and learn to live a very different way to what I’m used to.
Each day, myself and my partner worked first with the kindergarten students who were between 4 and 5 years old, and then we taught at the middle school, teaching English to students between 6 and 12. Since before covid, these students hadn’t had a native English speaker to teach them so I felt they improved drastically over the seven months I spent with them, with grammar and vocabulary and especially a big improvement in their English accent. Many of my students had a great drive to move to the United States and knowing English is vital for this to be possible for them.
After living with the host family for such a long time, I became very close with them and saw them as a second family, and in turn my partner and I were treated like one of the family. The town was full of extremely friendly and kind people who welcomed us with open arms, always offering to help, and always inviting us to join in with meals and events. The strong sense of community was a lovely thing to be a part of and I especially felt this during the regular festivals to celebrate a variety of occasions such as Mother’s Day or the anniversary of the region. These events really brought people together and everyone would come out to see the dances and reenactments that people had worked so hard to prepare.
From the first night arriving, one of my goals was to find the football scene in Candelaria, and it took one trip to the small astro turf pitch to find some people to play with. This instantly helped me to make friends and start integrating into the community. From this first day it turned into a 5 a side game at this pitch most evenings, and an invite to play for the Candelaria 11 a side team who play in the third division in Honduras. Despite a very jagged dirt pitch and boiling hot weather, when Candelaria were playing, the whole town would come and watch and cheer us on.
After my 8- month placement, I felt a great improvement with my ability to speak Spanish. I arrived in Honduras with good knowledge of the language but a limited ability to successfully engage in a conversation with a native speaker. With only one or two English speakers in the whole town, I was forced to speak and understand and by the end, I had little to no problems speaking the language and felt almost fluent. I also felt like I learnt the skill of adaptability. Things were
constantly changing and the ability to adapt to these changes was very important to grasp. Simple things such as constant power cuts meant lesson plans and whole days that were planned had to be changed and by the end, I had no problem with this. Teaching students daily, with many different classes and personalities and students of varying abilities taught me good leadership skills, meaning that by the end of my placement, I was extremely confident in controlling and leading a class of sometimes over 30 students.
Outside of the teaching, one of the big things that we were praised on as volunteers was how
well we got involved with the community in all aspects and left having made great connections with so many within our community. I have left many close friends in Candelaria and have been staying in touch with them since I’ve been home through video calls and sending photos.
I really feel as if this experience has opened my eyes to a whole different world, which I will be sure to keep in mind while studying economics at university and in my future life and career.
