OUR JUNIOR VOLUNTEER PROGRAM
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Junior Volunteers who are interested in the medical field or
have a desire to help others can take part in an incredible opportunity by
joining Blanca's House on one of our missions! We accept three junior volunteers from 14 to 18 years of age per mission, each of whom must be accompanied by an adult. |
Junior Volunteer responsibilities may include:
- Physical labor (lifting and moving boxes and supplies)
- Translation
- Runner
- Office tasks
- Operating room assistance
- Sorting and organizing supplies
- Distribution of supplies to local schools
JUNIOR VOLUNTEERS MUST ATTEND A MANDATORY ORIENTATION PRIOR TO MISSION to include CPR and introduction to sterile technique.
If you are interested in
joining us as a Volunteer for future missions, please complete the
REQUEST INFORMATION FORM
REFLECTIONS OF OUR JUNIOR VOLUNTEERS:
My experience in Babahoyo, Ecuador was awakening. My fellow team members were energetic, humble, collegial, and compassionate;
a truly amazing group of volunteers. The people of Ecuador -our patients- were brave, grateful, welcoming, and full of resiliency.
The mission tested my limits with long hours in the clinic, but the smiles of thankful patients were so rewarding and worth it at
the end of each day!
- Corinne Craig, 2009
My experience as a Junior Volunteer was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. There is one important lesson that I learned by being a volunteer during the Babahoyo trip that I believe is a very important aspect to note. That is the formula for success: Passion, Work Ethic and a Positive Frame of Mind. By being immersed in the environment of the medical mission, I learned that success can be achieved if these three key elements are incorporated. While this is not an original finding by any means, it was an extremely influential lesson to have seen firsthand. All the volunteers shared these elements necessary for success which infused the team with energy and motivation to continue in our mission through various obstacles and fatigue. The mission was extremely powerful in delivering this formula for success to me in a way that I could relate and directly incorporate into my future endeavors.
- Christopher Lenoci, 2009
This trip was in one word: unbelievable. To be able to help so many people in such little time is mind blowing. Everything was really put into perspective and things that I found so important before the trip don't seem to be nearly as critical in life. It was stunning to find three and four year olds on the streets with such a horrendous lifestyles, to smile and laugh and still manage to be so utterly carefree. I feel so extremely lucky for everything that I was blessed with.
- Neha, Junior Volunteer /Rivas, Nicaragua 2009
Blanca's House Junior Volunteer, Aneri Kinariwalla,
wins first place honors in national essay contest
presented at the Gershwin Theater in New York, January 2010
Although I've never actually seen the play, my friends tell me that Wicked is about a witch who takes a stand for the betterment of the world. I admire that the character cares and gets involved. I too like to volunteer in order to change the world. This past September, I had the ultimate chance to do just that.
I wasn't sick, I wasn't on vacation, but I wasn't there for the first week of school. That's because I was in Nicaragua, with an organization called Blanca's House. I, along with the other team members got to perform free procedures in a hospital-like setup for those who couldn't afford them otherwise. Over the course of the week (with three actual working days), we performed a total of 267 procedures and over $700,000 dollars worth of free medical services. It definitely was extremely busy, but it was totally worth it!.
Donating money feels good, but the feeling of helping people the way our team was able to is indescribable. Each and every patient invoked a wonderful feeling within me, but three people really and truly touched my heart. All three were kids, my age or younger, who had plastic procedures done. The procedures were not done for the same reason that people here have them done for. The three of them each had a problem that drastically affected their lives, problems that people here would have had fixed upon birth. Evelina, a girl close to my own age had a cleft palette, which is when the palette is not completely developed and the two halves of the palette are not completely joined. I didn't get to scrub in and assist for her surgery as I did for others but I was able to care for her in the post operation recovery room. Despite the language barrier, I felt a connection with her. It made me unbelievably happy to see the joy on her face when she touched her mouth and realized that her cleft palette was fixed! A simple stuffed dog we gave her made her entire face light up. She couldn't stop uttering the one English expression that she knew; thank you. Mycol, another child who was operated on also had a cleft. He filled me with such emotion. He was but two years old and couldn't stop crying. He was so overwhelmed and frightened! His bawling went down to sniffles when we blew bubbles for him. As I blew bubbles towards him in the post operation room, he didn't know even to pop them. He just watched each one float around with an expression of wonderment on his face. Eventually, his crying even transformed into laughter! This amazed me. He appreciated simple bubbles more than kids here would appreciate all of their birthday presents combined! Andy, another young child, had something called a tongue tie, which is a birth defect in which the tissue that attaches the tongue to the bottom of the mouth (lingual frenulum) is abnormally short, so the movement of the tongue is extremely limited. Although he and his parents were quite apprehensive, they remained comparatively cheerful. Andy was a daddy's boy and his father kept him happy. It filled me with great joy to see Andy and his father interact. But his dad couldn't do all of the work! So I kept him entertained with the dolls, toys, and crayons that I had made prior to the trip for this purpose exactly. The doll I gave him kept his mind off of the operation. The next day, after the procedure, he and his father came to visit the other nurses and I in the area where I was working, and guess what Andy had in his hand!? That's right, the doll I had made and given to him! All three of these patients, Evelina, Mycol, and Andy really made me feel good, and like I had helped, even though I hadn't directly given them their medical treatments.
Our organization didn't only provide medical treatments for the people of Nicaragua. We had the chance to do more. On one of the days, the junior volunteers got to leave the hospital for a bit and go on a trip. We, along with a humongous truckload of provisions, went to the slums. The truck was filled to the brim with bags of food that could each feed a family for at least a month. We distributed each and every bag of food. We got to actually hand each bag over to the people. It really opened my eyes to see how these people lived. It surprised me to see how much they appreciated something as basic as food, something I take for granted. Most of the houses, in which at least 4 to 5 people resided in, could easily fit into my bedroom! It felt incredible to be the person handing the people food, something, that from the looks of it, these poverty-stricken people could definitely use.
Another one of the days, we were able to go on yet another trip, this time to a school. We got to hand each child a backpack, and left the school several large bins filled to the brim with school supplies. It was nice to get to visit the kids and give them something to help enhance their education. There were kids from the ages of kindergarten all the way up to my age. I didn't realize how nice my school really is, and how lucky I am to get the education that I am getting. I am getting the tools to make a difference in the world. I can be something great in the world if I want, but these kids aren't really getting the chance to be whatever they want. It makes me actually almost appreciate my school, and believe me, that's saying something!
The Blanca's House motto is "Every child counts. Every family matters", and over the course of this trip I saw just how true that is to our organization. Now that motto is true in my case too, I feel the same way. Sure it was hard working in the heat for 16 hours a day, but it was DEFINITELY worth it! We helped, and I had the chance to be a part of something great. I didn't only have a chance to change somebody else's life, but each one of the people changed mine. The trip and its effect on me is indescribable, but I hope this essay captured the essence of it. I'm just overwhelmed with emotion. My outlook on life is forever altered. I can't wait for the next trip! I completely agree with Mahatma Gandhi when he said that "you must be the change you wish to see in the world". So you know what, look for some big changes in this world coming from me; Aneri Kinariwalla, trying to change the world, one person at a time!