Name: Emma Gibbs
Year: 2nd
Major: Kinesiology
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Meet Emma! She spent all of last summer in Tanzania volunteering at schools and orphanages in the town of Arusha with the organization IVHQ. I had a chance to talk with Emma about her experience and why she thinks it’s important to volunteer and do good both locally and globally.
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Emma’s interest in volunteering abroad started when she was about 12 years old. Her family had friends that went to Haiti every year on a humanitarian trip. They would always collect donations and gifts to bring with them. When they got back to Canada they would have pictures of the people they worked with and the things they did. This peaked Emma’s interest in doing a humanitarian trip herself when she got older. Further encouraging this goal was a keen interest in African cultures. A trip to Tanzania seemed like the perfect way to merge two things she was passionate about.
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When asked about what her expectations were before leaving on her trip, Emma says she signed up for the teaching program, so she had a bit of an idea about what type of work she would be doing, but other than that she mostly expected to have a really exciting summer filled with many new and different experiences that would help her grow as a person.
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Her experience in Tanzania was fantastic. She recalls going into the classroom and seeing the excitement on the faces of the children in her class. One of the most rewarding parts of her experience was teaching students how to write letters and numbers and seeing the joy in their faces once they learned how to do it. Of course she did face some challenges while over there. For her, one of the most challenging aspects of the trip was the fact that she stuck out so much because of her skin color and sex. “People would have a preconceived notion of what you are like and who you are just because you are white, and being female can just add to those stereotypes.” Despite the fact, that being in Tanzania had its challenges. Emma says that coming back home is perhaps the most challenging part. “When you are leaving for your trip, you prepare yourself for what it’s going to be like. You prepare for life in a developing country, and have a bit of an idea of what that entails. When you come back though, you forget to prepare yourself for re-entry into Western culture and dealing with people’s complaints about what truly are first world problems.”
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Emma says that after her trip, she is much more conscious of what she has, and is careful not to take things for granted. She says it’s easy to slip back into a mindset of privilege and entitlement. Talking to others about her experience helps keep her grounded. She encourages other people to take part in a program similar to hers, but if flying to another continent seems like a big undertaking she suggests starting small and helping out in your local community. “Community was very important in Tanzania, and I think we can learn a lot from that.”