Ghana - An experience for a lifetime

Maximilian talks about his voluntary service with Volontariat bewegt in Ghana

"My traineeship gave me a new home, a new family, people I learned to love, people who loved me and, above all, a broadening of horizons that I will carry with me for the rest of my life."

What were my main tasks during the assignment?

My main task was to accompany my "boys", the children and young people at the Don Bosco Boys Home, to stand by them and, above all, to show them love and care. As the boys all come to us at the Boys Home from extremely difficult life situations, they often find it difficult to build trust with strangers and integrate into a safe, familiar environment, especially at the beginning. Of course, my approach to each of the 42 boys was different, which is inevitable with an age range of six to 20 years. The younger ones usually needed a big brother or even a father figure, while the adolescent teenagers mostly just needed someone to show them their limits, to talk sense to them or someone they could chat to about girls, sport and so on. In addition to this "being there", I also organized various leisure activities, tournaments and also led the weekend oratory.

This is what my day usually looked like:

As the boys from the Don Bosco Boys Home also went to school, of course, my working day at the Boys Home didn't start until the afternoon. First on the schedule were the indoor games. We mostly played table soccer, a checkers and other board games.

After lunch, the "boys" were taught various skills (piano, dance, brass band, drumming) by external trainers.

This cultural activity was followed by sport. The boys could choose between soccer and volleyball. I usually took over the training of the younger boys.

At six o'clock I went back to the volunteer house for an hour for dinner, which I shared with my three Austrian fellow volunteers. There we had another short time to catch up.

In the evening, it was time for the boys to study and learn.

Our day ended with the daily "evening prayer".

These were the focal points of my project:

The Salesians in Odumase run three projects:

The Don Bosco Technical School: It is comparable to an Austrian technical college.
The Don Bosco Oratory: children and young people from the surrounding villages can come together there to play and pray.
The Don Bosco Boys Home: The home offers orphans, street children and children from difficult family backgrounds a second home.

Volunteering should be a positive building block in life - what comes to mind?

Volunteering has enriched my life in every way. The friendships I made during this year will last a lifetime and will always remind me of "my" Ghana. Above all, I have grown enormously as a person. Coming to a completely new environment, with a different culture, language and way of life, you have to open up personally and accept a lot. As a result, you learn to deal with your own limitations and fears and to approach people directly and get to know them. Working with the children has also shown me so many new perspectives and being with them has allowed me to grow as a person.

An experience that particularly enriched me was:

At my farewell party, I could no longer hold back the tears because I was overwhelmed by all the experiences and people I was able to meet in Ghana. My "boys" gave me the most beautiful and best consolation anyone could give me. We sat together all afternoon, looked at the photos from the past year and lay in each other's arms with bittersweet tears.

NGOJobs.eu would like to thank Volontariat bewegt for the permission to publish the report and the volunteer Maximilian for the great text and photos!