1/22/2008 - AFS Chile Holds Successful Social Service Camp

AFS Chile held a successful volunteer social service camp “Los Maitenes 2008” which took place from 3 to 15 Jan.’08, and which aimed at helping one of the poor communities of our country.

AFS Chile decided, two years ago, to reinstall a tradition that we used to have many years ago and had not been carried out for 25 years.

This is the second year of the volunteer social service camp in which AFS returnees, hosted students and friends of AFS can participate. We are sure that we have made a right decision in reinstalling this type of camps which motivate people to work for others and it falls within the AFS mission of working for world peace.

During the camp, the volunteers had the opportunity to work for this poor community and, together with its inhabitants; we built 5 houses for families, repaired roofs for others and painted several houses.

We also carried out workshops for children and young people who became very attached to the volunteers. This close relationship with the local people had a great impact in the camp’s volunteers and they felt the affection and gratefulness from the inhabitants of Los Maitenes.

There were 45 volunteers from different parts of our country, plus 4 hosted students: Corinna from Austria, Lura from USA , Guro and Steinar from Norway and Lydia from NZL who participated in the Jan’07 social service camp and who became so motivated by the work carried out that she decided to return to participate in this year’s camp. We also had the participation of a volunteer from AFS Paraguay (Kika).

We can say that we had excellent results; we left Los Maitenes knowing that the community was very grateful for the help provided and all the volunteers are very happy with the experience and willing to participate in the next volunteer camp in 2009.