written by Delfina Vecchiet, Participant from Argentina
While I was in high school I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and live in another country. In a very unexpected way I won a scholarship for an annual program to The Philippines in 2015. It was a completely unknown country to me. At first I was scared because I considered Asia a really exotic and different place.
In a few months I felt more integrated than five years of highschool from my home country. I had a new family and new friends! Filipinos made the experience incredible with their beautiful attitude and values.
When it was Christmas time, with the rest of the exchange students from Kalibo we decided to make a community service to a really humble school, we raised money and built them a library, provided them with some goods and spend time together. That was one of the most beautiful things from my exchange year that really marked me! Living a year abroad changed my goals.
Once I came back to Argentina, I decided to study Sociology, to understand better human tendencies. I became an AFS volunteer in Buenos Aires as an adviser to other exchange students and also being part of the visibility area. And I’ll be going for two months to Brazil as a volunteer in an org to spend time with kids from 4 to 16 years to make a project for the Sustainable Development Goal of the UN number 4: quality education.
I won an AFS ex participants contest and I had the opportunity to be part of the II Symposium held in Buenos Aires about Global Education and the IV International Forum of Global Active Citizenship held in Mexico City to speak and inspire others about the importance of living abroad that can make a huge impact in your life and how important it is intercultural education nowadays.
