We have awarded one of our Footprinter Grants this year to Katie Hughes. She’s heading to San Alfonso in Chile to teach English at a primary school. It sounds like a thoroughly worthwhile volunteer year, and we wish her the best of luck! Katie Hughes writes ahead of her time in Chile In August this year I will be moving to a rural village outside Santiago, Chile with a partner whom I am yet to meet. But this daunting idea is something I have always […]
Arriving back home after twelve months away was a strange feeling indeed. In some aspects it feels like yesterday since I was here but when I think back over the highlights, the challenges, the general experience and what I gained from it, I realize that it feels like a long but very rewarding year away. I can split my work at the school into the two halves of the year. I can now see that the first half of the year was not as enjoyable […]
Nine months into my gap year in Chile and I feel like I never want to leave this wonderful country! I love my job, my Chilean family and my friends in the local community. After backpacking through Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and the South of Chile my language skills are better than ever and I learn new things every day. I’ve seen amazing sights, met inspiring people and finally managed to understand crazy Chilean Spanish. One of the most incredible parts of this journey has been […]
To say my gap year started smoothly couldn’t be any further from reality. To explain everything that has happened to me over the past few months I have to start at the beginning. Arriving in Chile everything was new and exciting. New sights, noises and disgusting city smells. Also the biting cold, none of us were prepared for that. We spent the first night in a hostel to rest and shower after nineteen hours worth of flying. The second day we were being shipped out […]
I have now been living in Santiago, the capital city of Chile for just over ten weeks and a lot has happened! I am volunteering full time as an English teacher in Colegio San Luis Beltran which is charity aided school in Pudahuel. (arrangement made through the Scottish charity Project Trust) I have a constant Scottish companion who I luckily get along as we are together twenty four hours a day living with a Chilean family whose home is always full of people (generally 6-9 […]
The adventure begins … With only a few days left before I depart the waves of nervous excitement are kicking in! Soon I shall be boarding a plane from London Heathrow all the way to Santiago, Chile – my home for the next year – half way across the world. I hope I will have the opportunity to make a positive impact on many lives and of course on my own! My placement as a volunteer in a school is being organised through a charity […]
In a couple of week’s time I will be jetting off to Chile to teach English in the capital city of Santiago for 12 months. I will be teaching in the poorer suburbs of the city and living with a Chilean family who only speak Spanish. My project partner and I will be teaching 4-17 year olds in a school with around 550 pupils. I start off my year as a language assistant and as I become more confident and my teaching skills improve I […]
