Learning through volunteering

Many young people in Germany are choosing to spend time abroad before or during their university studies working on development or volunteer projects. YG spoke with two students who chose this path, one who went to Ghana and another Argentina, to learn more about their experiences.

Maxie Witt working on a project based in Kumasi, Ghana, Photo courtesy of M. Witt

Maxie Witt spent six months working with young people in Ghana. Now a student of psychology at the University of Koblenz-Landau, Witt chose to volunteer in Africa because of her interest in the continent and hopes to return to undertake clinical work in psychology. 

YG: Where are you in your academic studies?
MW: I’ve already finished six semesters in psychology. I was always really interested in this field, in understanding how people work – how we think, the way we work and how we work. It’s about really understanding the reasons behind the way people act the way they do. I like clinical psychology because I want to help people and work with them directly.

YG: How did you decide to spend 6 months in Africa before beginning your studies?
MW: Before university I had always planned to go abroad. For me it was clear that I wanted to be in Africa because it was always such a fascinating place for me. My mother and I discovered Projects Abroad* which lets you choose which projects you want to do and for how long. Many organizations require that you’ve completed your university studies before participating in a project like this, but they don't so it was a good fit for me. 

YG: What did you do during your stay in Ghana?
MW: I lived in Kumasi in southern Ghana where there are few if any tourists or international people like in the capital. I was there for half a year and lived with a host family. I worked at a home for children. It could be challenging sometimes, the work and being in another environment like this, but I had a good feeling when I was working with the children. There were some 30-35 children there from various family backgrounds and for different reasons, the children being between 6 and 18. It was quite mixed in many ways. 

What kind of training did you have prior to the project?
MW: Before I went to Ghana I attended a seminar together with all the volunteers where. I was the only one going to Ghana in our group, while the other volunteers knew each other prior to travelling and being stationed with the project. A lot of the challenges that came up couldn’t have been foreseen, however, but we were always in contact with the organizers whose staff was also n Kumasi and Accra.

YG: How was the experience similar or different than you had expected?
MW: I think I expected less problems between cultures. I knew there would be misunderstandings of course, but I thought misunderstandings would be easier to resolve than they actually were. English was a shared language, but not our first language so there were communication issues at times. On the whole though, it was as I expected – a challenging time where I met so many nice people and had so many interesting experiences. 

Would you consider participating in another project such as this again?
MW: Well, I plan to go to Africa next summer to complete the praxis component of my psychology studies. I would like to do something with children again or mental health and disease prevention at the clinical level. For every young person an experience like this is important because you learn so much about yourself and new cultures. In psychology you learn that every person is an individual, that everyone is different, but if you only know Germany, for example, then this is not that easy to understand. When you’ve lived abroad you really understand this in a new way.

Brigitte Wildner is a student of psychology at the University of Erlangen. In 2009, she volunteered to work with a project in Argentina.

YG: How did you come to work on a project like this in Argentina?
BW: I was in Cordoba, Argentina for two months in 2009 after graduating from high school where I worked in an orphanage exclusively for girls. The residents were not actually orphans at all, but rather taken out of their families because of abuse or an inability of their families to care for them. I had studied Spanish in school and was very interested in Latin America and wanted to go abroad to gain new experiences and have meaningful contact with other cultures. I came upon Projects Abroad because they had shorter-term projects. Most others last a year or longer. 

YG: Did you know what you wanted to study upon assuming this project in Argentina?
BW: I hadn’t started my studies yet, but yes, I was already enrolled in my program. I began my studies in late 2009 at the University of Erlangen. There are a lot of different fields in psychology which I really like and it’s all about people. I interned at a counselling practice for children and teenagers.

YG: What was the project liked that you worked on?
BW: I lived with a host family that was organized for me and went to the orphanage for around four hours a day. The girls there were between 7 and 18 years old. I mostly spent time with them. Once I had the experience that two girls ran away while we were on a walk. The organizers told me that this happens quite frequently. One girl returned some weeks later and the other didn’t. They were in their mid-teens. 

YG: Were you working with other volunteers from Germany or Europe?
BW: At first it was just me. I was the first volunteer working at this orphanage. After a few weeks another volunteer came from Canada and then after a month another one. 

YG: How did this experience change you and influence your studies?
BW: It certainly changed me. Psychology is always about people first and foremost, and I really liked working with these young girls. So this experience only expanded my interest in the field. I didn’t do psychology work there, because there was a trained psychologist who came to the center once a week, but I really liked being with the girls. If I go into the direction of clinical psychology, I’d like to work with children. I really saw how the children there benefited from therapy. 

YG: Would you advise other students to participate in a project such as this?
BW: For sure. I think it's been one of the best things I did in my life so far. It was a great experience because I met a lot of different kinds of people, learned about how they lived and thought. You also get a different view of your own culture because you compare your culture with the foreign one. You learn the language in a different way too. I still stay in touch with some of the people I met there. If you want to do psychology, you have to have experiences with people and this was a very rewarding one.

*Since its founding in the UK in 1992, Projects Abroad has had more than 25,000 volunteers take part in its programs. The Berlin branch was founded in 2001. In addition to their existing projects for volunteers with no previous experience, Projects Abroad PRO launched in 2011, a program designed for volunteers with some professional experience. Participants choose the projects they'd like to work on, the country and duration of stay. Their residence is organized by Projects Abroad employees on location and volunteers board with host families.