How it all started

I suppose that it all started when I was born. But I am not going to bother you with my life story, I am going to relay to you what I feel and what I see here in Argentina. I am going to speak the truth and I am going to write about my experience, among others, working as a volunteer coordinator for a non-profit organization called HelpArgentina, located in Buenos Aires.

Also, it is the hope that this blog will show you all little about what is actually going on in Argentina today through my eyes. It is, however, as much a personal experience and reflection as it is an opportunity for me to give you a fair and honest look (as much as is humanly possible) at a number of grass-root non-profit organizations and associations, their stories, and their volunteers, in a slowly evolving Argentine social sector.

But before any of this future blogging continues (note: I am already using the word 'blogging', damn cool...), I probably should introduce myself, my background, how I got to Argentina, and then present the organization that I work for, HelpArgentina.

I am originally from Maine. For those of you that do not know where Maine is, it is in the north-eastern part of the United States, near Canada. Maine has running water and electricity, contrary to public opinion. It also has big dump trucks, hicks, lots of forest and mountains and beautiful landscapes, rivers and lakes, and most importantly, peace and quiet.

My parents:

My parents are great people, kind people.

My mother is a painter, dancer, choreographer, volunteer, and progressive. She is progressive in her politics and progressive in her spirituality. She spends many parts of her days inspiring others, helping others, and enjoying life to the fullest. I am convinced that she is a highly-evolved soul.

My mother battled breast cancer in 2005. Always positive, upbeat, and willing to embrace her situation, she overcame her illness. Thereafter, she found herself on a new plain, with a new knowledge and a new 'inner light' that shines and that I find truly inspiring.

My father is a local physician in our small coastal town of Damariscotta. He has been a doctor for more than 25 years. If you know anything about small towns, then you will know that they are 'small.' That means that everybody knows you, you know everybody, and sometimes they even know your deepest and darkest secrets. Our small town is not suffocatingly small, but it is hard to avoid that intimate feeling of everyday life. That smallness has allowed my father to be the doctor of and for everyone in the 'whole' town. I am exaggerating slightly, but my father has cared for and continues to care for a great percentage of our quaint little community. He has dedicated his life to making our community better and he is loved for it.

My father has other abilities that never cease to amaze us. Since his hippie days with my mother in northern Maine, growing tomatoes under their bed during those brutal Maine winters, he has been a builder. He builds and innovates, innovates and builds. I have not lived one year with him where there has not been at least 3 different renovations going on at the same time. These renovations do get done (my mother may disagree at times) and have become the source of our utmost joy and occasionally, our deepest anxiety. Our joy is when my father finds peace building (he is often busy at work) and fixes things, and most recently, when he built by himself a 4 story barn on our property that houses an indoor basketball court, playroom, art and dance studio, and top-floor apartment. Our anxiety is when there is constant construction and 'almost' finished projects lingering, and when we see my father on the top rung of a ladder, four stories above the ground, with a piece of 20 foot plywood dangling from one arm, hammer in the other.

Needless to say, my parents are unique people, creative people. They dream and they achieve. That's admirable.

My introduction:

Since I was a child, I have desired to give back to the community, to others. My parents were most definitely the biggest influence in this as I learned from their example. But it is also truthful to say that I have always 'felt' on an individual level, a unique passion for people, for finding ways to help others, unconditionally. I also feel strongly about the profound innate human capacity to act 'lovingly' toward others. To care or support others. I have never felt it stronger than now while living in Argentina.

Volunteering or community service was an integral part of my high school years in Maine. I volunteered with youth through the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program. I visited regularly a group of local elder care homes that my father founded in our community. There I grew close with several elderly people, listening to their life stories and helping them get around. I also worked for an elder care service where I took care of a 93 year old elderly woman. We frequently took drives to the ocean so that she could leave the house. We even ate ice cream and pizza.

Following high school, I spent the better part of one year living and studying abroad. My time in Oxford, England, Hawaii, and particularly, Mexico; opened my eyes to different realities. While living with a kind and humble host-family in Mexico, I also observed for the first time 'severe poverty.' I watched and observed homeless families and street kids with regularity, helped out where I could, a smile or some spare change; and often found myself wondering what life was like for them, what they thought about, or dreamed about, if anything.

I returned home to Maine after this year with an evolved perspective of myself and my future role in society. It was clear that I wanted to support others, but it was not clear how I would go about such a general idea. If any of you have the opportunity to travel, experience new cultures and new people, I highly recommend it; it will change your world for the better, whether you recognize it or not.

I spent four years at Davidson College in North Carolina, where I majored in history and completed an international studies concentration. I was blessed with a rich and academically rigorous experience where I cultivated great friendships, with both professors and classmates. Though Davidson still remains a predominantly 'white' school, I found myself most comfortable with the minority of students who descended on Davidson from other countries or other ethnic groups within the United States.

During my semester abroad in the fall of 2001, September 11th, struck the United States. I was participating in the School for International Training's (SIT) program in Geneva, Switzerland. It is ironic that I was in a 'neutral' country during September 11th. I have never been impartial to world events. My nature is most definitely more pacifist than antagonistic. But viewing September 11th from Switzerland, I was provided with a safe space to analyze and reflect on these horrible terrorist attacks.

Despite the understandable shrills of sadness from my program classmates and the images of falling buildings on the television at our local office, I began to contemplate, like many, what may be the numerous reasons for and consequences of these suicide attacks. What did it mean for me? What did it mean for the world and for the United States?

Too many things have transpired since 2001 to dedicate time to here. However, there is one thing I was sure about following the terrorist attacks: that these new challenges needed to be faced by humanity with an open mind, with care, and with compassion for the differences that exist in our world today. I do not speak to compassion for individual suicide bombers, but to compassion for other cultures, other ways of thinking, and for finding constructive ways to settle conflicts. Being aware of the daily struggles of others today was important for me.

I finished my semester abroad with a more developed interest in international development and foreign affairs. I felt an invigorated desire for a more academic and practical understanding of the world. I thought that living and working in a grass-roots environment would introduce me to the kinds of people and situations that would expand my perspective and allow me to give back to others.

The move to Argentina:

After graduation in 2003, I serendipitously made a contact through my father with a young American who had moved to Argentina after its economic crisis in 2001-2 to form a non-profit organization called HelpArgentina. Though it was not clear what I would actually do in Buenos Aires and for how long I would stay, I jumped at the opportunity to volunteer/intern with this start-up, improve my Spanish, and to understand what would be the aftermath of a severe economic, political, and social crisis in Argentina.

My first year in Argentina between 2003-2004 was the beginning of a relationship that would span that last 5 years since I graduated college in one way or another. HelpArgentina was in its infancy when I arrived. It was just an idea, a concept, and a vision by an American and a local Argentine to help under-funded non-profit organizations recover from the economic collapse and the social crisis that followed. In principle, HelpArgentina sought to provide the mechanism for these diverse organizations to receive donations from abroad, both efficiently and transparently.

I must admit that I would not have been able to explain what HelpArgentina was in 2003-2004. This is partly because I do not think HelpArgentina knew either. Founding a US 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization in Argentina after a crisis was no easy thing. There was a lot of uncertainty, as well as, many other economic, legal, and social hurdles to overcome. On a more personal level, I was also just a naive volunteer in a foreign country. I was just seeking to perfect my Spanish to a level so I could understand what was going on around me. I traveled around the country to get a glimpse of Argentine geography and culture too. I continued as a regular volunteer with HelpArgentina until I left Argentina in the middle of 2004.

Toward the end of my first stay in Argentina, HelpArgentina received its first major matching grant for an economic development and job creation initiative that it spear-headed for the poverty-stricken northern provinces of Argentina. Inspired by our first major effort to leave a mark on Argentina after the crisis, I began my own individual fund-raising initiative directed at my hometown community in Maine. I wrote an article for the local newspaper introducing our project and telling of my experience in Argentina. Upon returning home, I was able to raise a modest USD1000 for this economic development project and create well-needed awareness for the ongoing economic and social crisis in northern Argentina in particular.

My efforts for Argentina were simplistic and highlighted the facility of bringing a cause you care about to those you know best. These individual efforts, among several others at the time or thereafter, began a movement of individual fund-raisers for Argentina who later came to be called "Social Ambassadors." These people host dinners, plan events, or organize innovative communication and fund-raising campaigns. Irrespective of my subtle influence in this new movement, Social Ambassadors have become a fundamental part of a HelpArgentina network of people living abroad who raise donations and mobilize their communities for Argentine organizations.

This first phase in Buenos Aires was life-changing for me. Not only had I seen and learned a lot from participating in and observing a young non-profit search for its identity and create new changes in the Argentine social sector, but also I had cultivated strong relationships with local Argentines. I watched them adapt to the country's most recent instability. One important relationship was with an Argentine travel agent who later became my girlfriend and her family. Another instrumental experience was with a lower income family of 5 who spent their days between living on the street and sleeping in a small room lent to them by a family member, located far outside the city of Buenos Aires (more later on these relationships).

As established in Switzerland in 2001 and even before in Mexico, my first year in Argentina effectively allowed me to put myself in the shoes of others and to find ways to comprehend their daily realities on a much deeper level. Also, in the case of my new friendship with the Bustamante family, the family that I met on the street, I learned the rewards and challenges of helping someone in need.

HelpArgentina, 2006-2008:

I returned to Argentina in late 2005 after one year living and working in the United States. In March of 2006, I began my second stint at HelpArgentina, but in a wholly different capacity. First of all, I was a paid staff member. Second, I was working for a new innovative social enterprise called InsightArgentina, not founded by Help, but formed as an independent volunteer program under the legal umbrella of HelpArgentina.

What is HelpArgentina in late 2007? What is InsightArgentina? Why is volunteering important? And what is my role at HelpArgentina? I will respond to these last questions before concluding my first blog.

HelpArgentina is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that acts as a bridge or channel between the international community, whether Argentine donors living abroad or foreigners who want to collaborate, and Argentine organizations. HelpArgentina provides a safe and efficient framework so that these same donors may see the results of their donations through impact reports, regular updates, and newsletters. These Argentine organizations must comply with strict international norms for transparency and good practices. Uniquely, HelpArgentina is one of less than 20 'online social marketplaces' that exist today in the world. And overall, HelpArgentina seeks to strengthen a diverse group of Argentine organizations in order to improve the quality of life for the Argentine community and its citizens.

InsightArgentina has officially become the 'volunteer program' of HelpArgentina. Insight is a hands-on educational program that "...is aimed at those seeking insightful, socially-oriented experiences abroad." InsightArgentina, however, is not your ordinary volunteer program. It customizes the volunteer experience to fit the fundamental needs of the host organizations while very much based on the capacities that each volunteer has to offer. Insight works passionately to achieve 'results-orientated impact' to empower Argentine organizations. It also seeks to cultivate an invaluable long-term relationship between both international volunteers and their organizations and communities in Argentina.

Volunteering is important for many reasons. It is a way to give back to others. It it a way to help others in need, in some cases. It is also a way to learn about other perspectives and realities. I firmly believe that volunteering should not be taken lightly. That does not mean that volunteering has to be overly serious either. Volunteering should be fun. But, it does mean that to be an effective volunteer, one must be sensitive to the realities of others, sincere in their intentions toward others, and altruistically focused on what you can do to help, not pure self-aggrandizment. Volunteering is one of the most eye-opening and important experiences one can have. I hope that one day everyone will make a commitment, whether big or small, to volunteering their time to others.

At HelpArgentina (Insight), it is my job to receive the volunteers, to accompany the volunteers to their host organizations, and to be the intermediary between these two groups. I help to manage projects, provide institutional support, and work to mobilize and inspire volunteers so that their efforts are maximized and sincerely benefit their organizations. Thus, I spend many days riding the bus or train to different parts of the city and province of Buenos Aires to guide and visit volunteers, as well as, their organizations. The best part of my day is seeing the faces of the children and the volunteers at work. I love the contact with people, the stories, the challenges, and the rewards. I feel alive in these local environments and it inspires me to know that my presence, and our presence, does make a difference.

My experience as a volunteer coordinator with grass-roots organizations has showed me things about life that I am most grateful for. I hope to convey these things to you from here on out. Forgive me if I get side-tracked sometimes, but hopefully, these writings will be inspiring and enlightening. Thanks for reading!

In the spirit of my first blog, I ask you to take time out to understand, enjoy, and appreciate others, if not today, tomorrow.

Peace out.