Portsmouth Grammar School Volunteering Visit to Argentina

The Suzanne Furstner Foundation proudly supported the first ever Portsmouth Grammar School Volunteering Visit to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

15 sixth form pupils from Portsmouth Grammar School embarked on a trip in April 2009, to volunteer with Voluntario Global, a local charity in Buenos Aires working at the heart of impoverished communities in the Argentinian capital.

The Suzanne Furstner Foundation funding enabled the group to enhance their volunteering experience in a number of ways: by providing video cameras and funding a video workshop, participating with a third party agency to arrange group theatre, music and dance activities, plus an opportunity to take a group of Argentinian children out of their usual shanty town surroundings to learn about the changes taking place in another part of their own capital city.

The Suzanne Furstner Foundation was keen to support the project as it has both long and short term aims and benefits, and its organisers demonstrated a real passion for creating a programme for the UK students to really contribute to the improvement of children's lives in Argentina, whilst also expanding their own horizons.

The video cameras were used by the Portsmouth Grammar School students to document their time in Buenos Aires and the resulting footage is shown to future students considering the trip. The cameras themselves were donated to Voluntario Global for the children in Buenos Aires to use. The children who Voluntario Global work with have few opportunities to step outside of their own barrio, so the day trip to another part of the capital was a real treat, giving them a new learning experience in a different part of their own city.

In the long term, the hope is to make this venture an annual event on the school's calendar thus embedding international volunteering into the ethos of the school.

Participating students from the UK will have their eyes opened to different issues and priorities of children growing up in a totally different position. Maybe some of these students will go on to volunteer in the future, maybe some will go on to work for NGOs or go home and get involved in money-raising events for charity...