Sarah Campos, a teacher at the Sacred Heart School in Godella (Valencia), volunteered in the summer of 2022 in Buenos Aires (Argentina) collaborating with the Moreno Community and the Villa Jardín Community. We share her reflection entitled, "A Transformative Experience - NORTH-SOUTH VOLUNTEERING".

In life, there are times when an opportunity comes your way and it seems that it was predestined to make an impact on you: these are usually opportunities that we cannot let slip away - there is something about them that grips us. At some point in my first year as a teacher at the Sacred Heart, this name appeared - NORTH-SOUTH VOLUNTEERING, with capital letters, because it has remained deep within me. The pandemic determined that it wasn’t the best time, and three years later, the opportunity reappeared, silently but steadily.

I decided to take the plunge and began a training session in Chamartín with Josemari Aymerich, Isabel Desmond and Marisol Chirosa, along with 7 other young university students and workers who share the same concern: to transform the world, leave our comfort zones and feel that we are here for something more. The training we received went far beyond what we had expected. It was a formation that was both spiritual and from the heart. It taught us to look deeply into our inner self. It meant growth, moments of peace and personal commitment while also looking out towards others.

We were visited by people full of wisdom. They shared with us their vision of missionary life, and how to approach the experience.

It was during these meetings that the way forward was forged, a path full of hope, hard work and growth... and there was no turning back, we were fully on board.  The day came when the projects were presented and it was decided which was the most suitable for each one of us. It was fate. And so, Argentina entered my life.

It was a journey full of uncertainty and nervousness, but above all of excitement and great hopes. I did not have to travel alone, since I was lucky to have Beatriz Burgaz, a teacher from Chamartín, as a companion on this adventure. Together we crossed the Atlantic.

We were welcomed by our new host family: Lourdes, Silvia, Ana, Valery and Paula, the religious of the ARU province of the communities of Villa Jardín and Moreno. In Villa Jardín, I felt at home, despite being so far from my family; if I have learned anything from the people of Argentina, it is their kindness, generosity and affection. They welcomed us with open arms and smiles and they applauded us when they knew where we came from.

Villa Jardín is a community experiencing various difficulties, which the religious community, working together with the local residents, are trying to alleviate. A neighborhood focused on making progress and on developing in a human way. The sisters work closely with the Instituto Sagrado Corazón ALCAL Educational Center, which strives to offer the children and young people of the neighbourhood a more just future. Children and adolescents are given love, affection and attention and are provided with the tools to grow and make progress in adult life. The school has become a much-needed social support while, at the same time, it facilitates academic growth. The focus is on young people being and convincing themselves that they are the change, now and in the future. The prosperity of the neighbourhood is in their hands and in the work that they and others continue to develop.

Among the activities run by the center, are the social canteen and the voluntary service of Hand in Hand for Life.The social canteen is open to people in the neighbourhood in vulnerable situations. It offers them a place where they can meet and share a snack with the teenagers of the school, and it also provides them with food. Friendships are created, and the tables are filled with words of gratitude and sad stories; the teenagers absorb all this in order to be able to transform the situation.

Volunteering Mano a Mano por la Vida (Hand in Hand for Life ) brings two worlds together: on the one hand, the students of the Secondary School (Baccalaureate) of the Sacred Heart Institute of Almagro and, on the other, those of Villa Jardín. Two different social groups that on Saturdays spend their free time together to grow and develop activities for the children and young people of Villa Jardín, where they are they are being provided with a space to play, run, have fun and interact with other children of their own age.

As part of this volunteer experience, I was also able to visit the community of Moreno, where they carry out a literacy project for children between 3 and 10 years old. There, the sisters' work offers a resource for families who, due to their circumstances, have difficulty in accessing the school system. They also run community vegetable garden projects that help to provide much-needed self-sufficiency for the vulnerable neighbourhoods they serve.

Participating in the North-South volunteering has meant for me an opening of my mind and a profound shock faced with the reality of these communities. It has also allowed me to be nurtured by the affection of so many people with huge hearts, and to learn from their resilience, their strength and their desire to move their communities and their lives forward.

You don't have to cross the ocean to realise that you can help here, locally, in our communities and in our schools. I bring back so many lessons I have learned and it has been an experience that goes beyond words. Now I am embarking on a new path: that of transforming everything that the religious, teachers, volunteers, adolescents and children have taught me and applying it here, in the Sacred Heart, in Godella, in my neighborhood.

Sarah Campos
Sagrado Corazón, Godella