Bit by bit people drop in. Alejandra and Meyling, two accountancy students from the UNAN University; Deanna and Arantza, two volunteers who through an international student organisation spent six weeks with us; personnel from the office and activities centre; and members of the Board; about 15 persons in total.
There is lots to celebrate in our Community Home today. Meyling and Alejandra completed their 100 hours of course work during which they made an inventory of our possessions and catalogued them. It’s their last day with us today.
Deanna from the US and Arantza from Mexico are also about to finish their assignments. Deanna doesn’t speak Spanish which is inconvenient because I’m the only one within the Ruach Foundation who does speak English. Luckily Arantza speaks English fairly well, so that the two girls (in their early 20s) can help each other with their daily activities. Arantza assists our book keeper with all sorts of accountancy issues, while Deanna worked with me on PR-tasks, including the updating of our Spanish Facebook page – many pictures and a better lay-out, and Deanna also strengthened our contact with Global Giving, an American organization that uses their expertise to assist small charities, including Ruach, with fund raising and promotion. The support of Deanna and Arantza is very valuable as their activities are time-consuming and Ruach is short of the expertise that they offer us.
While with us Deanna and Arantza stayed in the house where the office is located and where the activities’ club meets. It has a guest bed room with 4 beds. But both of them spent a lot of time in the Community home, not in the least because of the WIFI we have got here!
We also organized the lunch to celebrate the two birthdays of Deanna, -her first birthday abroad-, and Heysel who helps with cooking, washing and cleaning in the community home. With so much to celebrate, we treated ourselves to a dessert after the main meal: cake!
It is heart-warming that young people show interest in volunteering with us and thereby get real contact with intellectually limited people, not generally a popular target group. We are very grateful to all volunteers who support our work. As a token of appreciation we ended our lunch gathering with the presentation of gifts and certificates.
We also know that we have contributed to these young volunteers as their stay with us no doubt will have an impact on their lives. We have gained ambassadors who, by sharing their experiences, will talk more positively about people with intellectual disabilities.
We had so much to celebrate at this lunch!