A WESTBURY volunteer has returned after spending 10 weeks building a community centre and helping a poor community in Nicaragua.
22-year-old Josie Scott was selected by the International Citizen Service, a government scheme that enables 18-22 year olds to work as volunteers in the poorest parts of the world.
Josie said, “It was incredible! Life-changing and eye-opening is the most accurate way of describing it. I didn’t know what the project would be until I got there, and I was assigned to a community centre in a village.
“Nearly all of the community are dependent on farming, and farm just for what they can eat. They’d had changes in rain and weather and were struggling.
“One of the big problems was that it is a really rural organisation. It was a quite a tough community to go into, there were lots of divisions religiously, and we had to get them to accept us and trust us and then work together.
“It was four weeks of construction for a community centre, and within the community we also taught English.”
Josie hopes to develop a career in the charity sector. She said, “It was really incredible and inspiring and I was seeing the impact these projects do have. A lot of people are a little sceptical or negative, but I was not only doing the work but also seeing the impact it had. It was undeniable that it was a really worthwhile thing to do and I’ve come back full of energy and enthusiasm.”
She is now organising a community project to do back in the UK as part of the International Citizen’s Service scheme.
Josie would like to thank everyone who supported her fundraising in the run up to her trip to Nicaragua.
Pictured: Josie Scott; and the volunteer group