This month of June our Volunteers of Hope are the youth of the Sacred Heart Family who have given themselves in service to various projects around the world.

We share the stories of Marine, Camille, Melchior, and Benjamin.

Marine: International Volunteer in Chile

I had an international volunteering mission in Reñaca Alto in Chile which was an incredible experience!

I lived for 2 months in an international house with four sisters: two Mexicans, one Chilean and one Spanish. I loved living in a roommate with them! I slowed down my pace and took the time to do things simply: take a whole morning to make a good 100% homemade meal (50% of the produce comes from the vegetable garden), start the day off right by going to the chapel to read a passage from the Bible and finish it by praying. I was doing a different mission every day: English lessons for parents, support in a school where I accompanied a few students who, after 2 years of the pandemic, could not read or write. I made them discover France a little, its culture and spoke to them about planes (my favorite field). I also helped a Sister to develop the compost, by collecting the organic waste bins of certain families and giving them the land that it became so that they could plant their own vegetable garden. Once a week I went to Valparaiso to cook a meal that we were going to distribute in the street to the poor. We organized activities for the children by playing, doing school reinforcement and a little meditation with them!

What is impressive is that I arrived in Chile without any particular expectations, knowing almost nothing about the missions I was going to do and, without knowing it, what I did was exactly what I wanted! I wanted to make myself useful and it succeeded because I was able to learn to read and write 2 little 12-year-old boys who were very late. I have made friends with wonderful people with huge hearts despite all the difficulties they have been through, but above all I have learned that simplicity is the key to happiness.

Article from: https://volontariatsacrecoeur.com/2022/06/03/marine-en-volontariat-inter...

Camille: Local Volunteer in France

I remember a Monday morning at the beginning of July, one of those days of loss of meaning as they can happen in volunteering... 

That Monday, the educators only started their day late and the young people were very tense. Facing my cup of coffee, I felt the emptiness of volunteerism. The void of gratuitousness which wants the volunteer to be neither essential nor profitable. That day… this emptiness weighed on me.

And yet, I had to take an evening train for Paris, with Bakary, one of the young people in the hostel, he had an appointment at the embassy of his country of origin to obtain a travel document. Bakary had always ignored me until then and was often in conflict with the educators. Suffice to say that I dreaded the journey ahead. On the road to Paris, which reminds me that I miss my loved ones, the temptation was going to be great to stop there and not come back.

Taken by an intense discouragement, I decided to go to pray, as a last resort. In prayer, where I never know what to do, all that came to me was that if I have the audacity to collect myself with God, I must think of myself as his child… This simple observation sounded like an obviousness and an immense peace came over me: if God or any other intention, whatever its name, drew us and then deposited us on earth, it is necessarily for the sole purpose of being happy there. Suddenly the sense of anger, doubt, anguish, wickedness passed to me... If man is created to live for a short century on earth, these negative energies no longer have a place and the only thing that counts is ultimate need to enjoy, love, give, have fun!

Boosted by this vital revelation, I resumed the course of my day. I took the train with Bakary, silent, indifferent to my presence. As a precaution against boredom, I had provided myself with a game of UNO. Seeing him laugh at my defeats, I agreed to play as many games as he wanted. While I find this game quickly boring, Bakary's smiles became a light on my empty day. Then followed 1h40 of Uno, tired, disinterested, I only fed on the joy of my sidekick. 

The next day, the meeting at the embassy ended much earlier than expected and Bakary and I found ourselves with 3 hours of free time in Paris. The feeling of emptiness seizes me again at the idea of spending all this time with this young man who still did not speak to me. Nevertheless, I decided to show Bakary all over Paris to keep us busy. 

Coming out of this day, touched and moved, I realized that without landmarks or personal happiness, alone, raw, exhausted, destitute, there remains the OTHER. The other and the thousand riches and surprises of the disinterested encounter between two human beings. At that moment, I acquired an unwavering confidence in the future, the belief in the inherent infinite wonder of the human being and the certainty that I will never be afraid again.

This void of volunteerism was in fact the greatest space of freedom and love for the other.

Article from: https://volontariatsacrecoeur.com/2021/07/16/une-journee-pas-comme-les-a...

Melchior, Benjamin and Camille: Ten good reasons to volunteer in France

The Sacred Heart Volunteering is aimed at young people aged 18 to 30 who wish to live a deep human and spiritual experience by putting themselves at the service of others. And the others are also those who are close to home! Discover ten good reasons to engage in Catholic volunteering in France.

In France or abroad, for a month or a year, there are a thousand ways to get involved when you are young, voluntary and want to serve others. This is what the Sacré-Coeur volunteer program offers, allowing volunteers to live immersed in communities and rediscover the richness of a simple life without going to the other side of the world. Here are ten good reasons to get involved locally, ie in France, with “Partir ici”.

Click here to read the complete article.