VOLUNTEERING IN CAMEROON

I met my husband when he was involved with an international organization that sends volunteers overseas to work in developing countries, such as Cameroon. My husband is a Canadian who volunteered to spend 18 months in a rural area in northwest Cameroon, working with the local Council in the area of capacity building. The organization he was with was called VSO (now Cuso International), which works in over 40 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. The North American volunteer recruitment office is located in Ottawa. Cuso International focuses on certain key areas of development, including governance, health and education. (http://cusointernational.org/volunteer)

During the period my husband-to-be was in Cameroon, I found myself learning about the volunteer experience, while seeing my husband learn about the local customs, issues and people of his adopted home for 18 months. I had always thought the purpose of volunteering was to provide services to communities that could not afford to pay for themselves. However, what I learned from the many international volunteers that I met was that their intent of being there was not so much to provide a service, as it was to help the local people develop the skills they needed to take care of themselves.  For example, in the education sector, volunteers would spend some time with students, but the majority of their time was used in training teachers and helping improve the way the school system operated. Of course, the purpose of this approach is to help improve the school system to a point where it is no longer dependant on international assistance.

In addition to the work that volunteers did, the experience of living in a different culture, especially in a country where poverty was so abundant, was very challenging. My husband said several times that seeing people living in challenging conditions was difficult, but he expected that type of challenge. What he did not expect was the feeling of isolation and loneliness that comes with being in a place where people have such different interests and there is little infrastructure to support recreational activities. It can take a long time and much effort to become comfortable communicating with people from foreign lands, as I have also learned since moving to Canada two years ago.

After meeting many volunteers and learning of the benefits and challenges of volunteering, I have become interested in doing volunteer work myself. I hope someday to return to Cameroon to help the people find ways to improve their lives so that they are able to take care of themselves, and will even be better able to give back to the international community. This is one of my dreams, and I think that if we all shared the dream of helping our neighbour, there would be no poverty, war, or discrimination of any kind.