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Volunteer Work

The cycle of volunteer work

Volunteers vs. Humanitarians

When volunteering with us, your occasional participation can turn into consistent commitment. Based on this premise, we draw a distinction between volunteers and humanitarians. On the one hand, there are people who occasionally engage in humanitarian action. This is the starting point for everyone. However, after participating in more than three instances of humanitarian action, you become a humanitarian—your dedication is no longer inconsistent, but a day-to-day commitment. You become aware of the fact that you can permeate all your daily actions with a humanitarian essence.

When reaching this point, you receive your humanitarian vest, to which you can add, one by one, the patches of the activities you participated in.

Types of volunteer work

Humanitarians are divided into four groups. Each group is focused on a specific matter: search and rescue, needs assessments, water harvesting systems, and gender perspective. These groups engage in specialized volunteer training programs in their respective field of interest.

In each case of humanitarian action, different roles are designated to different members of the team to perform the activities for the day. Firstly, we have the leader and co-leader. Then, there is the professional volunteer group, which is formed by people trained in photography, medicine, dentistry, or psychology. Finally, there is the general volunteer group. Each group wears a shirt of a distinctive color:
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Virtual vest

Through this virtual vest, discover the stories of our volunteers and humanitarians.
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Turkana

“En Turkana tuve que mantener una apertura a los encuentros con el otro. Uno de estos encuentros sucedió en Lodwar, un pequeño poblado en el que visitamos una escuela de niñas. Yo llegué como asistente de medicina; empecé encargándome de tomar algunos datos de las pacientes que se acercaban. Por el contexto, comenzaron a surgir diálogos sobre distintos temas de salud.

Hubo un caso en particular que se quedó conmigo: el de Brenda, una adolescente de 13 años. Su mirada delataba una curiosidad muy singular. No me lo esperaba, pero ella me estaba viendo con la misma fascinación con la que yo observaba a Turkana, un entorno muy poco familiar para mí. Me hizo preguntas sobre mi estilo de vida, y descubrí que muchas cosas que yo tomaba por sentado en realidad podían ser de otro modo. Por ejemplo, cuando le conté que vivía con mi familia y mi perrita, ella me respondió que en su comunidad acostumbraban a matar a los perros.

El intercambio fue tan extraño como enriquecedor. Finalmente, encontramos un tema que nos atravesaba a ambas: la menstruación. Hablamos de que es un proceso que nos recuerda que somos mujeres. Juntas, descubrimos que teníamos un campo en común a pesar de venir de contextos tan disímiles”.

Ucrania

Go Team

Guajira 2022

Perlita Esquenazi, una voluntaria de CADENA Colombia, asistió a su primera intervención en La Guajira, una zona ubicada en el extremo noroeste del país. Ella fue para dar el taller de toallas ecológicas, Bordando Nuestras Reglas.

Perlita recuerda con más cariño el segundo día de la intervención, en el que visitó una comunidad Wayúu. Para llegar, el equipo tuvo que atravesar el desierto durante por lo menos tres horas en camioneta. Cuando Perlita se encontró con las mujeres con quienes iba a impartir el taller, comenzó a notar que la mayoría hablaba wayunaiki y que muy pocas entendían español. Antes de la intervención, ella había intentado prepararse leyendo de la cultura de la comunidad, pero estando consciente de que probablemente cualquier intento de absorber información se quedaría corto ante la experiencia de estar allí. En ese momento, Perlita confirmó esa sospecha de que nunca es posible saber exactamente qué esperar.
Mientras intentaba pensar en cómo dar el taller, ella notó un rostro familiar entre el público. De inmediato reconoció que era una mujer que había estado en el primer día de la intervención y, antes de que pudiera pedírselo, se acercó a ofrecerle ayuda. Le enseñó algunas palabras básicas en wayunaiki y unos cuantos conceptos necesarios para dar el taller: menstruación, sangrado, salud.

Al principio, Perlita sentía un poco atropellado el flujo del taller. Además de la diferencia de idioma, en la comunidad existían muchas barreras culturales alrededor del tema de la menstruación. Pero, entre los intentos de comunicarse y la actividad compartida de coser las toallas, pronto entraron en confianza. De ahí, todas expresaron sus experiencias y dificultades con la menstruación: muchas de las mujeres debían usar trapos, algunas otras tenían que sentarse en huecos. Parecía que la falta de acceso a productos menstruales era algo que tenían en común. Si querían comprar toallas desechables, por ejemplo, debían recorrer el mismo trayecto de tres horas por el que había tenido que pasar el voluntariado, sólo que ellas debían hacerlo a pie.

Después de esta intervención, Perlita reafirmó la importancia y la riqueza de los intercambios culturales. A pesar de la distancia, tanto por el idioma como por la forma de vida, las mujeres pudieron crear un espacio de comunicación y de empatía. Y de eso se tratan las intervenciones.

Guatemala

Juventud CADENA

Providencia

En el 2020, desplegamos una intervención a Providencia, Colombia, tras el paso de un huracán de categoría 5. Daniel Getzel, quien fue voluntario en la intervención, cuenta que la isla quedó completamente devastada. Los hogares estaban colapsados, enterrados por los escombros del ecosistema del lugar. El huracán provocó que los servicios de electricidad se dañaran, por lo que las personas locales habían pasado algunas noches sin luz, completamente en las tinieblas.

El equipo de CADENA llevaba insumos de emergencia, entre ellos lámparas solares, que entregaron inmediatamente a la comunidad. Getzel narra que lo que más lo conmovió fue un momento durante la noche, después de un arduo día de trabajo alrededor de la isla. Mientras caminaban por la zona, él y el equipo empezaron a notar que las lamparitas se encendían, una a una, en cada una de las casas. El poblado comenzó a cobrar vida mientras la iluminación se extendía a través del territorio. Para Getzel fue un momento de esperanza y de humanidad, donde se volvió consciente de que la oscuridad y la luz son elementos que convergen tanto en la acción humanitaria como en la vida misma.

Agua YA

El agua es un recurso esencial para la vida y el desarrollo de las personas y comunidades. Por eso, en CADENA trabajamos para facilitar el acceso al agua potable a quienes más lo necesitan, a través de varias iniciativas, entre ellas, programas como Agua Ya.

El acceso al agua transforma realidades y fortalece la resiliencia de las comunidades.

Bordando nuestras reglas

Pathfinders

Iniciativa CADENA

CADENA College

Turkana

In Turkana, I had to keep an open attitude towards how you can have meetings with others. One of such meetings took place in Lodwar, a small village where we visited a girls’ school. I arrived as a medical assistant and started gathering some data from the patients who approached us. This context meant that conversations on different health issues began to emerge.
There was one case in particular that stuck with me—that of Brenda, a 13-year-old teenager. Her gaze revealed a most peculiar curiosity. I didn’t expect it, but she looked at me with a gaze full of fascination. It was the same fascination with which I watched Turkana, a region highly unfamiliar to me. She asked me about my lifestyle, and I found out that several aspects I took for granted actually were not a possibility to others. For example, when I told her that I lived with my family and my dog, she replied that in her community, they used to kill dogs.
This exchange was as strange as enlightening. Finally, we found a topic in which we had shared experiences: menstruation. We talked about menstruation being a process that reminds us that we are women. Together, we found that we had a common ground in spite of coming from such dissimilar backgrounds.

Ukraine

Guajira 2022

Perlita Esquenazi, a volunteer from CADENA Colombia, participated in her first humanitarian action in La Guajira, an area located in the northwest end of the country. She visited the region to give our workshop on eco-friendly menstrual pads, A Period to Sew Together.
Perlita’s fondest memory of such a case was the second day of her humanitarian action in a Wayuu community. To arrive in the community, the team had to drive through the desert for at least three hours. When Perlita met the women with whom she was going to give the workshop, she began to notice that the vast majority spoke Wayuunaiki and that very few understood Spanish. Prior to this workshop, she had tried to prepare by reading about the community’s culture, but she was also well aware that any attempt to absorb information would likely fall short compared to the experience of being there. Perlita fully confirmed her suspicion that it is impossible to know precisely what to expect.
While trying to figure out how to give the workshop, she detected a familiar face among the audience. She immediately recognized her as a woman who had been on the first day of the humanitarian action and, before she could ask for it, she offered her help. The woman taught Perlita some basic words in Wayuunaiki and a few key concepts to give the workshop, namely, menstruation, bleeding, and health.
At first, Perlita felt that the flow of the workshop was not running smoothly. In addition to the language difference, there were many cultural barriers in the community around the topic of menstruation. However, between the attempts to communicate and the shared activity of sewing the pads, they soon earned each other’s trust. Afterwards, they all shared their experiences and challenges concerning menstruation. For example, a great number of the women had to wear rags, while others had to sit in holes. Apparently, the common problem was the lack of access to menstrual products. In the event that they wanted to buy disposable pads, for example, they had to travel the same three-hour journey that the volunteers had to go through, but they had to do it on foot.
After this experience, Perlita acknowledged the relevance and the worth of cultural exchanges. Despite the distance, both due to the language and the lifestyle, women were able to create a space intended for communication and empathy. This is the goal of humanitarian action.

Guatemala

CADENA Club

Providencia

In 2020, we carried out a mission of humanitarian action in Providencia, Colombia, after a Category 5 hurricane hit the region. Daniel Getzel, who volunteered during this disaster, stated that the island was completely devastated. Homes had collapsed and were buried by the debris of the local ecosystem. Moreover, the hurricane caused damage to electricity services, so local people had spent several nights without light, completely in the dark.

The CADENA team carried emergency supplies, including solar lamps, which were immediately delivered to the community. Getzel shares that the most touching event during this time occurred during the night, after a day of hard work on the island. As they walked through the area, he and the team started to notice that the lamps were being lit, one by one, in each of the houses. The village began to come to life as the light spread across the area. For Getzel, this represented a moment of hope and humanity, as well as the moment when he realized that darkness and light are complementary elements that coexist in humanitarian action and life itself.

Water for All

The project creator, Andrés Rubinstein from CADENA Costa Rica, shares that noticing the consumption of highly contaminated water and the health risk it represented for thousands of people was his main motivation to develop Water for All. He continues to work hard on the improvement of his country’s sanitary conditions, and his project is being implemented in other countries, including Mexico.
David Benaim has participated in several cases of humanitarian action of Water for All in Huatulco and other regions of Mexico. For him, this is a project that has become a consistent commitment, and a long series of memorable moments are the result of his involvement.
In one instance, he and a team of humanitarians installed a system in a school. They chose a point that faced a very wide field, opposite of which the municipal building could be found. The team had to accomplish several tasks, such as transporting the material and the tools to the site, arranging the water tanks, concrete blocks and gutters. The entire team committed itself to perform the tasks. Everyone was aware of their role and quickly focused on it. An atmosphere of concentration and dedication was created as a whole, as usually happens in the cases of humanitarian action of Water for All.
David remembers that at a certain point a large number of people from the community began to show up. These people had come willing to help and engage in the process of building the system. They soon took part in the work, and with such a co-operation it seemed like each step flowed with greater ease.
One of the local volunteers was a plumber. According to David, he showed a unique commitment to the installation since he seemed moved by the atmosphere of mutual support and joint participation that was developed between the humanitarian workers and the people of the community. At the end of the day of hard work, when the system was already finished and ready for operation, the plumber approached the team and offered to follow them to the next community to continue collaborating with them.
A few weeks later, when David and the team returned to perform a second case of humanitarian action, the plumber joined in. He stayed with the team during the entire installation process, even though the working sessions were prolonged and used to finish late. He was even willing to make the journeys to every place on his motorbike.
From this and other experiences, David has reached the conclusion that the fraternity developed through joint effort constitutes one of the crucial elements of the Water for All project. The installation process—from moving the material and placing the water tanks, to polishing the final touches—enhances an atmosphere of solidarity sharing a common goal.

A Period to Sew Together

CADENA Initiative