Volunteer in Buenos Aires!

CENTRO CONVIVEN presenta: R-EVOLUCIONES - Compañía de Danzas de Amigos na Cultura - Brasil

2011-08-26T20:45:00.004-03:00

La Compañía de Danza Amigos na Cultura tiene como objectivo la promoción y desarollo humano de niños/as adolescentes y jóvenes en circunstancia de fragilidad social, fundamentada en la metodología. Amigos na Cultura, basada en la ciudadanía cultural expresada en la creatividad, la innovación, la diversidad y la participación actica para una construcción de sueños reales en nuestro país.

Fechas de presentación en la ciudad autonóma de Buenos Aires

28 - 10 Escuela Media 3 Distrito Escolar 7
29 - 10 Centro Conviven
31 - 10 Escuela Media 2 Districo Escolar 20
2 - 11 Museo Histórico Cornelio de Saavedra
5 -1 Encuentro de danzas del Club de Jóvenes C.A.B.A

¡Ahora tenemos Facebook!

2011-08-16T11:31:00.001-03:00

Ahora pode nos agregar en Facebook e interarte mas sobre la ONG. En la pagina tenemos fotos de todas las actividades que hacemos y nuestras campañas de donación.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002521826639

Eleanor M. from Australia, June 2010

2011-05-17T12:36:00.004-03:00

Originally written in Spanish on July 8, 2010. Volunteer translation by Joelle Bouchard, former Spanish teacher in Houston, Texas, USA.

Here I want to be honest about my experience as a volunteer at Conviven.

The truth is I was mistaken about what it would be. When I decided to stay in Buenos Aires, I had planned to participate in some kind of project, but it was very complicated: I found a lot of organizations that wanted to provide an experience for tourists or exploit one's desire to help for capitalist means. After having spent a lot of time searching for a good organization I gave up. I shouldn't have done it. The worst thing is that at one point, I had entered Conviven's web page, but rejected it when I saw that it was a religious organization. Upon seeing that I thought “No, not that. I don't want to participate in a project that exploits people's weakness in order to impose certain values.” From that moment on I dedicated myself to my studies and enjoyed the process. However, I somehow felt empty. One Saturday in May, I read an article about the work that Conviven does in Ciudad Oculta. They seemed so dedicated in helping those less fortunate that I decided to put my prejudices aside and get involved with the Center. I didn't look back.

My experience working with Conviven, although it was only during a short time, forms the most powerful memories of those gained during my stay in Argentina. In the first place, that experience rid me of the idea that Argentina was not a poor country. It is. It could be that the poverty is not as apparent as it is in Bolivia, Guatemala, or Paraguay. But hidden poverty is poverty nonetheless. In addition, I realized that an individual can have a positive impact on the life of another human being. It's not enough to talk about changing the system – it's the little steps that also help. The children with whom I worked were so good and they had so much drive to learn, and I feel very privileged to help bring out their potential. Finally, the experience inspired me. I am a law student and I always wanted to work with human rights issues. However, for the first time I realize that I can use the knowledge that I already have to help now, I don't have to wait until I graduate. Because of that, I'm offering my services, free of charge, to centers here in Australia that offer legal services to marginalized individuals.

I recommend to whoever finds the project, to get involved. I want Conviven to have all the luck in the world.

Advice From a Departed Volunteer

2011-05-17T12:26:00.005-03:00

Originally written in Spanish on September 9, 2008. Volunteer translation by Joelle Bouchard, former Spanish teacher in Houston, TX, USA.

I had the good fortune of spending five months at Conviven. They were five unforgettable months. They could have been boring, I could have not learned anything, but it wasn't like that. It wasn't like that becaue that's not how I wanted it to be. I spent a lot of time working for Conviven, preparing classes, thinking about what would be interesting to contribute...Because I think that is something that one has to do to really learn from this opportunity of being a volunteer in another part of the world. Commit oneself. In order to gain the confidence of the children and of the other volunteers at the Center, to learn even more from them then they learn from us...

I could have done a lot more, but no less. Because if I would have done less I wouldn't have felt so proud seeing my students enjoying their classes, I wouldn't have been able to establish such a good relationship with the people that were essential during my stay in Buenos Aires, like Carmen and my little students.

Participating in this program gives us the chance to meet special people, to have unforgettable experiences and I think that one should not bypass this opportunity supposedly because of a “lack of time.” Each of these children is special, although to realize this one must first gain their confidence and their interest because surely at this age, at times, the students aren't interested in learning English, or any other subject, but surely, that is the work of the “teachers!”

Well, that is the advice I want to give to future “teachers”: Have patience and imagination because these children are worth it! There are many interesting things to do with them beyond English classes but one must have a lot of desire to do so because it's not always easy to organize oneself.

Good luck and I hope you enjoy your experience as much as I enjoyed my stay in Buenos Aires, and above all at Conviven!

Marie, from France

OJO DE PEZ!!!!

2011-04-10T14:19:00.003-03:00

Los invitamos a participar de la inauguración de la exposición de fotografías y videos de OJO DE PEZ, los esperamos el miércoles 13 de abril 18:00hs en la Galería de Arte PASAJE 17, Bmé Mitre 1559. Los esperamos!!!!

Se agradece difusión.

We invite you to come and participate in the photographic and video exhibition of Ojo De Pez. Head to the Galeria de Arte, Pasaje 17, Bme Mitre 1559 this Wednesday 13th April. See you there!!!!

Ojo de Pez - Talleres de Artes Audiovisuales

http://www.ojodepez.org.ar

Actividades de Verano 8-11 de Febrero

2011-02-23T17:21:00.009-03:00

Although rain threatened our activities on Tuesday and Wednesday, many children and volunteers still showed up to play some games and have some fun! Tuesday we gathered in the center and played some games, including: stick in the mud, musical chairs, fruit salad, and many more. A few volunteers created a game of Twister for the children (and volunteers!) to play using an old sheet and sponge painted on the colored circles. It became a learning experience for both volunteers and the children, as volunteers with minimal Spanish (me) learned through the kids helping out, and vice versa, when the game was played in English. I now have no excuse for not knowing the difference from my left and right in Spanish! Other activities included hopscotch, after which everyone gathered together to put paint on their hands and leave a print on a sheet next to everyone’s names. In addition we did face painting with the children and the volunteers then received some face painting of our own. After the children left that day a few volunteers stayed to celebrate Carmen’s birthday and eat a delicious cake prepared by Angie! Happy Birthday Carmen!! Thank you for all of your help and for always feeding us!

Wednesday we were all excited to travel to Buenos Aires playa, however there was a last minute change of plans due to unexpected rainfall. Even so, many kids showed up at the center, so we all stayed indoors and played various games. Everyone was pretty antsy to get outside, so luckily on Thursday we were able to go to the park and release some energy! The park is about a twenty-minute walk from the center and has an open space to play games and swings with a playground structure for the kids to climb on. We split into teams to play some futbol and a sort of rugby-American football hybrid creation. Before leaving the park we attempted to spell Conviven using our bodies for letters, this was entirely unsuccessful, however we did get some funny photos from it!

Actividades de Verano (8t-11 de Febrero)
Aunque la lluvia amenazó las actividades el martes y el miércoles, muchos chicos y muchos voluntarios aparecieron en el centro para jugar y divertirse. El martes jugamos muchos juegos como: la mancha, las sillas musicales, la ensalada de fruta e mucho más. Algunos voluntarios hicieron un juego de Twister para los chicos (y los voluntarios!) jugaron, con sábanas viejas donde se pintaron círculos coloridos. Este juego fue una aprendizaje para los voluntarios y para los chicos, los voluntarios que no sabían español aprenderán con las instrucciones de los chicos y vive versa, cuando el juego se hacía en inglés. Ahora, yo no tengo ninguna disculpa para no saber cuál es la derecha y la izquierda en español. Jugamos a “hopscotch” y después pintamos nuestras manos y presionamos en una sábana, donde escribimos nuestros nombres. También pintamos los rostros de los chicos que después pintaron los de los voluntarios. Después de los chicos salieron algunos de los voluntarios se quedaron en Conviven para festejar el cumpleaños de Carmen y comer la torta riquísima que Angie preparo! Feliz cumpleaños Carmen!! Gracias por toda la ayuda y por darnos comida!

El miércoles estábamos todos entusiasmados para viajar hasta Buenos Aires Playa, pero empezó a llover y tuvimos que cancelar. Por otro lado muchos chicos vinieron a Conviven y nos quedamos en el centro para más un día de actividades con muchos juegos. El jueves pudimos ir al parque y libertar la energía! El Parque se queda 20 minutos del centro Conviven y tiene espacio para jugar y “swings” donde se puede trepar. Hicimos equipos para jugar el futbol y algo parecido con una combinación de rugby y futbol americano. Antes de irnos intentamos escribir la palabra Conviven con nuestros cuerpos, pero aunque no lo conseguimos hacer, sacamos fotos muy divertidas al intentarlo.

La playa y el parque!!!!!

2011-02-19T11:18:00.003-03:00

Week of Jan 31-Feb 4
This week at Conviven, the adventures continued at the Conviven center, nearby in the Mataderos neighborhood and then on to Buenos Aires Playa. On Tuesday, the activities took place in the center but on Wednesday, a boatload of children and a gaggle of volunteers walked to the park on Avenida Lisandro de la Torre to spend the afternoon frolicking in the sun. The group played on the new jungle gym structure, the swings and played soccer/football, tossed the rugby ball and played other games before stopping to have snacks and drinks on the grass under the trees. It was an adventure that left everyone with smiles. On Thursday, the group took the bus out to the northeastern edge of the city to visit the Buenos Aires Playa, located in the Parque de los Ninos along the Rio de la Plata. The Buenos Aires Playa has a wide variety of activities for both youth and adults, including water showers, a sand football field, paddleball, frisbee throwing, music and dancing classes and a reading/story area. The kids were tremendously excited to visit Buenos Aires Playa and ran from one activity to the next while the volunteers followed excitedly behind. As the day was beautifully sunny and warm, the water fountain was a big hit with the kids, who soaked themselves from head to toe before dashing off to the next activity. Everyone left happy with the visit and looking forward to the activities of the next week.

Esta semana las aventuras siguieron en el Centro Conviven, cerca del barrio de Mataderos, y después en Buenos Aires Playa. El Martes, hicimos las actividades en el centro, pero el Miercoles, un montón de chicos y un grupo de voluntarios caminaron hasta el parque en Avenida Lisandro de la Torre para pasar la tarde jugando en el sol. Jugamos en los columpios, a la pelota y otros juegos antes de quedarnos debajo de los árboles para merendar. Fue una aventura que dejo todos con grandes sonrisas. El Jueves, fuimos todos en el colectivo hasta el lado noreste de la ciudad para visitar a Buenos Aires Playa, ubicado en el Parque de los Niños al lado del Rio de la Plata. Buenos Aires Playa tiene una variedad de actividades para ambos niños y adultos, incluyendo fuentes de agua, una cancha arena de futbol, paletas, frisbee, música y clases de baile, un espacio de cuentos y un predio de césped para jugar. Los chicos estaban emocionados por visitar a Buenos Aires Playa y corrieron de una actividad a la otra, mientras los voluntarios los siguieron animadamente. Como el día estaba soleado y caluroso, la fuente de agua era una de las diversiones favorita de los chicos, que se mojaron de cabeza a pies antes de correr a la actividad siguiente. Todos salieron muy felices con la visita, esperando ansiosamente por las actividades de la semana siguiente.

El Día de La Reserva Ecológica

2011-02-06T15:14:00.005-03:00

Although Summer Activities 2011 at Centro Conviven began two weeks ago, only last week did the weather allow us to do our first outdoor activity at the Reserva Ecológica Contaners Sur, one of the most beautiful places in the city of Buenos Aires. We left Conviven at 2p.m with a group of 16 children and went on an hours journey in the colectivo which took us to La Reserva. Once there, we went on a guided tour where the children were introduced to diverse species of plants and animals. Everyone got excited when spotting a lizard on the side of the track, lazily warming itself in the sun!!! The visit continued through the wildness of the reserve where one had to bend in order to cross the dense vegetation, and where the silence was only interrupted by the sound of cicadas. After 1.5 hours of walking we finally stopped for a snack near the river and also for some games, such as ¨who runs faster down the hill¨...!!! The visit lasted until 6:30pm and although we were already late to return to Conviven, there was still some time to enjoy the playground in a plaza nearby because, as you know... children never run out of energy!!!

It was undoubtedly a fantastic day that could never be possible without the help of Valmir, the founder of Conviven, and all of the volunteers of Conviven that were there to help with the children: Siobhan, Lottie,Jack, Angie and Carina.

Aunque las Actividades de Verano en Conviven empezaren hace 2 semanas, la semana pasada, finalmente el clima nos permitió hacer una excursión a La Reserva Ecológica Costaners Sur, uno de los lugares más bonito en la ciudad de Buenos Aires. Salimos de Conviven cerca de las 14h, con un grupo de 16 niños y tomamos un colectivo que tarde una hora para llegar a la reserva. En la reserva tuvimos una visita guiada que presentó a los niños con muchas especies de vegetales y animales. Todos nos quedamos sorprendidos con un lagarto que se tomaba sol cerca de la caretera! La visita continuó por los bosques de la reserva dónde tuvimos que agarcharnos para poder caminar por la vegetación densa y donde el silencio solamente fue interrumpido por el sonido de las cigarras. Después de caminar 1.5h, nos quedamos un poco cerca del río para merendar y jugar algunos juegos como ¨quién corre el más rapido para llegar a la punta del monte¨!! La visita terminó a las 18:30h y aunque estabamos atrasados en nuestro retorno a Conviven aun hubo tiempo para que los niños jugaran en una plaza cerca de la Reserva, porque, como ya saben... la energía de los niños nunca termina!!!

Sin duda fue un día muy bueno que nunca podría ser posible sin la ayuda de Valmir, el fundador de Conviven, y de todos los voluntarios de Conviven que se divirtieron con los niños: Siobhan, Lottie, Jack, Angie and Carina.

Zoo Trip

2011-01-31T17:31:00.002-03:00

Just before Christmas we took some of the children from Conviven on a trip to Buenos Aires Zoo. We had a bus pick us up from the community center and drive us into the middle of the city. A few parents came along to help chaperon the group. The kids where aged from 5 to 15 and where ready for their day out! We spent the afternoon going from cage to cage seeing such a wide range of animals most of witch the children had never seen before. I am pretty sure the elephants and polar bear where their favorite. For lunch we had lots of sandwiches and the children got to hang out in the play area which was full of swings and slides. As the trip drew to a close the children where still full of energy running round with smiles on their faces but for the
grown ups it was time to pack up and head home.

Mural Project in La Mantanza - Fun, Art & Action!

2011-01-19T13:38:00.012-03:00

Conviven will soon be opening a new Centre in La Mantanza. Conviven will be working closely with Patricias Argentinas who are an established organisation in the community.

In January 2011, Conviven & Patricias Argentinas worked together to create a beautiful mural at Patricias Argentinas Centre in La Mantanza.

Day 1

We all spent time in the afternoon with the children and teenagers

who attend the Centre

drawing out designs for the mural. The kids had really great, colourful ideas.

The Centre is a place of action, so we started transferring the designs onto the wall the same day. We worked together to decide the design and it was great to see everyone so enthusiastic about the project.

By the end of the first day, the teenagers had designed the mural and sketched the design on the

wall.

Day 2

So time to add some colour! The kids from the Centre were eager to paint so started right away.

The teenagers who attend the Centre arrived with lots of ideas for the final section of the mural. Before long, everyone was covering the walls (and themselves!) with paint.

It was great to see everyone working together & having fun.

Day 3

Everyone worked really hard on the final day to finish the mural. It was a really long, hot day

(34 degrees) but we still had lots of

fun.

We added a few more features to the murals and mustered all our artistic ability to make the mural as beautiful as possible. Here is the end result so you can judge for yourself………

Andrew & Alison, January 2011, London

2011-01-19T13:16:00.007-03:00

My husband & I were very fortunate to be able to take 6 month career breaks. We are travelling around South America we spent five weeks volunteering at Conviven.

For us, Conviven is all about - taking action, involving the Community and making a difference.

Conviven are expanding and opening a new Centre in another under-privileged area in Buenos Aires (La Matanza). We were asked to start the English classes in the new Centre.

Andrew produced a flyer to advertise the classes and we started drafting our class plans. The Centre has very limited resources (only tables & chairs), so with no access to computers, blackboards….we set about improvising with hand-drawn flashcards and worksheets.

We had one little girl attend the first lesson; by our fifth lesson we had 11 children attending the classes. Andrew taught the older children (12 & 13 year olds) and I taught the smaller children (5 - 8 year olds). The children are very keen to improve their English and even asked us for homework!

Everyone at the Centre was very patient with our limited Spanish and the kids loved teaching us Spanish.

In December, we were very fortunate to be invited to the ‘despedida fin de ano’ party at

Conviven’s main Centre. All the children who attend the Centre & their families came along to celebrate the kids hard work during the year. The children’s art work & photography was

displayed around the Centre and there were many different performances - rock band, circus skills, tango, rappers….

It is amazing to see how Conviven achieve so much with so little and how a few people can make a huge difference.

If you are thinking about volunteering, we would really recommend Conviven. We have met so many incredible people, learnt about their communities & have so many great memories.

End of Year Party /Fin de Ano fiesta

2010-12-13T22:27:00.001-03:00

2010-11-30T10:31:00.001-03:00

Come and Support us

2010-11-02T16:05:00.000-03:00

Photo Exhibition

2010-08-23T14:53:00.000-03:00

Ben B., March-June 2010

2010-07-27T17:21:00.003-03:00

Looking for a volunteer opportunity in Buenos Aires, I Googled "volunteer Buenos Aires," and one of the first things I found was the Conviven blog. I had never taught children before, but it seemed like a nice way to try something new and develop my own Spanish. I talked to Tez, the Volunteer Coordinator, by email, and three weeks later I arrived for my first day at Conviven.

I was given two classes, one "intermediate" class of six ten year-olds and another class of teenagers and adults. (There was only one class for students this old, and it was structured a little bit differently because it was an outgrowth of an individual homework tutoring program.) We were given weekly themes to teach, along with ideas for what to include in each theme. For example, the theme of one of the weeks was "professions." Suggested words to teach included "painter," "doctor", and "firefighter" and suggested activities included making posters about what the kids wanted to be when they grew up. Other than that, we could design our classes and lesson plans in any way that we wanted.

This freedom was both exciting and somewhat stressful. It took about a month of experimentation for me to develop a teaching pattern that seemed to work. Another challenge for me at first was maintaining classroom order. The kids were very sweet, and there were no serious behavior problems, but, like all ten-year-olds, they often preferred to talk and play with each other instead of to listen to their teacher. My first approach was to try to win them over by being laid-back, nice, and appealing to their reason (which was hard given my limited fluency in Spanish.) This didn't work. With the help of Bella, an experienced teacher and leader at Conviven, I eventually realized that it was important to enforce structure and be strict, even about small things. This actually improved the atmosphere in the classroom quite a bit, and I could tell that the students were having a better time.

By the end of my three months, I was very happy that I had the opportunity to work at Conviven. It was heartwarming to see the kids enthusiastically run into class and get genuinely excited about doing vocabulary practice worksheets. And I was just as excited to come to class myself. The hour-long commute was tiring sometimes, but every hour I spent teaching the kids was a joy. Although the kids exhibited no obvious signs of being poor, I knew that they faced significant challenges outside Conviven, and I was happy to provide a positive, if small influence on their lives.

A surprising development of my time at Conviven is that I learned that I liked to teach kids and have begun to consider changing my career to include this. After leaving Conviven, I believe very strongly in its mission, both that of the center as a whole and that of the after-school English program in particular. I strongly encourage anyone to give it a try.

-Ben B. Seattle, USA.

Olivia R., The Real Villa, June 2010

2010-07-15T12:42:00.004-03:00

It's hard to know that the children I taught come from some of the world's poorest neighborhoods, away from the eyes of visitors and the majority of people who live north of Avenida Rivadavia. As an American student studying abroad in Buenos Aires, I had no idea before I came to Argentina about the social injustices and poverty that many people who live there face. Our programs don’t tell us about these things; they put us up in rich neighborhoods and universities in the north of the city, away from the harsh reality of everyday life for so many people. Most visitors never know about that side of life in Buenos Aires, and for that matter most “Porteños.” The wall around la Ciudad Oculta is more than just a physical barrier; it separates the people within as an undesirable “Other.” When I told my host family I’d be volunteering down near Villa 15, they were horrified, assuring me I’d be robbed, probably raped, and definitely would get lice and illnesses from the “Negros.” This classist, elitist attitude shocked me; how could supposedly educated and “liberal” people have constructed these barriers of discrimination and prejudice and fear? And how could they live in such denial? And more importantly, why weren’t they doing anything to help relieve the suffering, or demanding basic human rights for those who have no voice? And at the same time I wondered what I would find, and how I could make a change. Who was I, to come to Argentina and think I knew better, that I was free of these same prejudices and fears? I thought I knew what it was like, and that I wasn't sheltered. I'd seen pictures and done lots of research and I spent my Wednesdays and Thursdays teaching just a few blocks away, but nothing could have prepared me for actually being inside the villas, an experience that almost tore me apart. To be completely honest, I too was afraid.

Despite everything that I knew, a sense of panic overcame me like a cold punch in the stomach that day when I'd realized I'd missed my bus stop and was passing through the villas: one side of the street the soulless gray monoliths of the Eva Perón Transitory Living Nucleus and the other familiar stacks of cheap materials that formed an endless shantytown. Nearly in tears, I had no choice but to get off and take the bus back. Terrified, I crossed the street and walked a few blocks and tried not to look conspicuous. And then I waited. Looking around at the ugly appearance of the buildings and the dirty streets and stray dogs, the pit in my stomach grew as I took in the sight of the poverty and apparent human misery. The second I saw another bus approaching the stop I jumped on, thinking this was my escape, until I realized the bus was headed the wrong way, deeper into the villas. Already late for class, I called Carmen at the Centro explaining that I was lost and scared to get off the bus and I was sorry I was late. She told me it was ok, but the kids were waiting for me. I burst into tears.

After hanging up everyone around me started asking where I was trying to go and patting my back and repeating "Tranquila.” On the bus back, the driver stopped at a corner and pointed down a street towards Eva Peron. I had no choice. I exited, and took a look at the shantytown around me. And then I started to run away from that place, and away from reality—that ugly monster of poverty and all the things I thought I had no power to change. I ran past stacked shacks and leering men and dingy shops and shoeless children and garbage and the whole miserable scene. I wanted out. I must have ran 10 blocks, I don't know, but when I realized that I was around the corner from the Centro relief flooded over me. Carmen was waiting for me outside, and I couldn't help but run into her arms and cry on her shoulder. She said nothing for a minute, because she knew where I’d been and what I’d seen. The kids were waiting inside for me, working on homework together but with anxious faces. When I walked in they crowded around, giving me hugs and kisses and yelling "Seño! Te perdiste? Sos loca!" and then hugged me some more and asked if it was tea time yet.

They also knew what I'd seen, and that I'd been afraid, that I couldn’t walk through those slums with my head held high, ignoring the ugly surroundings without fear. I was scared of their reality. I wasn’t brave enough to walk the same streets my students did, and they knew that too. But after that ordeal that invisible wall came down; we had an understanding and there was nothing more to be said about it. Life went on, and I continued, in my own small way, trying to give these kids something better. Was I loca? Maybe so, for believing that I could help them, and they could escape that misery like I had. Someone has to stand up against the prejudices and fear and injustices that the people in the villas face. And sometimes, reality has to slap you in the face to make you realize that there is hope; that the walls of oppression will come down. You have to believe this, or what hope is there at all?
-Olivia Reburn

Eleanor M. de Australia, Junio 2010.

2010-07-08T11:00:00.005-03:00

Acá quiero ser honesta sobre mi experiencia como voluntaria con Conviven.

La verdad es que me equivoqué de lo que era. Cuando decidí a quedarme en Buenos Aires, tenía planeado participar en algún proyecto así, pero se me complicó mucho: encontré tantas organizaciones que quería dar una experiencia turística o explotar el deseo de ayudar para fines capitalistas. Después de haber pasado mucho tiempo buscando y buscando una organización buena me di por vencida. No debería haberlo hecho. Lo peor es que en algún momento, había entrado en la página de web de Conviven, pero lo rechace cuando vi que era una organización religiosa. Al ver eso pensé “eso no, no quiero participar en un proyecto que explota la debilidad de la gente para imponer ciertos valores.” A partir de ese momento me dediqué a mis estudios, y lo pasé muy bien. Sin embargo, me sentía vacía de una manera. Un Sábado en Mayo, leí un artículo sobre el trabajo que hacen los de Conviven en la ciudad oculta. Esa gente me pareció tan dedicada a ayudar a esa gente perjudicada que decidí dejar mis perjuicios a un lado y acercarme al centro. No eché ningún vistazo para atrás.

Mis experiencias trabajando con Conviven, aunque era durante solo un tiempo cortito, forman mis recuerdos más impactantes de todo el tiempo que pasé en Argentina. En primer lugar, esa experiencia hizo que se me fuera para siempre la idea de que Argentina no era un país tan pobre. Lo es. Puede que la pobreza no sea tan obvia como en Bolivia, Guatemala o Paraguay. Pero pobreza oculta es pobreza aunque sea. Además, me di cuenta que un individuo sí puede tener un impacto verdadero en la vida de otro ser humano. No hay que solo hablar de cambiar el sistema – son los pasos pequeños que también ayudan. Los chicos con que trabajaba eran tan buenos, y tenían tantas ganas de aprender y yo me sentía muy privilegiada a ayudar a sacar su gran potencial. Finalmente, la experiencia me inspiró. Yo soy una estudiante de derecho y siempre quería trabajar con derechos humanos. Sin embargo, por la primera vez me doy cuenta de que puedo usar los conocimientos que ya tengo para ayudar ahora, no tengo que esperar hasta que me licencie. Por eso, les estoy ofreciendo mis servicios gratis a centros acá en Australia que le ofrecen asesoramientos jurídicos a gente marginada.

Recomiendo que cualquiera que encuentre este proyecto se acerque a ayudar. Y quiero que Conviven tenga todo el suerte del mundo.

Want to know how to teach English ?

2010-06-29T21:52:00.002-03:00

This Wiki has been created by the volunteers to help current and future volunteers with ideas and experiences of teaching English at Conviven.

http://sites.google.com/site/convivenvolunteers/

Musical Instruments needed please

2010-05-28T18:19:00.005-03:00

Centro Conviven is a non‐for‐profit, non‐governmental social organization that

serves the children, teenagers, youths and families that live in Ciudad Oculta, a

shantytown located within the city limits of Buenos Aires, Argentina where more

than 16,000 people live in acute poverty. Founded in 1994 by Valmir S. Viera,

Conviven’s mission is to promote educational, extracurricular and occupational

development for not only young children, but also young men and women so that

they may take control over their futures. Conviven also acts as a healthy

environment away from prostitution, crime and drug addiction.

Its educational program includes classes in literacy, English, French, secondary

education and computer science among many more. To promote creative

development, Conviven offers workshops in drawing, photography, painting, loom, dance, theatre, and circus production, again among many more. Finally, Conviven also has a successful music program that offers classes in guitar, percussion, singing, piano and trumpet.

The significance of these classes in the lives of the hundreds of children and youth Conviven serves cannot be emphasized enough. For those who have so little, these acts of creativity cultivate empowerment and hope.

Given its success, we are currently in the process of expanding our music program to include a full symphonic band. While we have the teachers and infrastructure in place, we still lack the instruments. If you or someone you know is interested in donating instruments, we would be extremely grateful for your support.

For more information on Conviven, please feel free to visit our website at

www.centroconviven.org.ar or email us at centroconviven@yahoo.com.ar .

Thank you very much for your support!

Warm wishes,

Centro Conviven

A new Year

2010-04-11T00:22:00.003-03:00

We started off the term of English classes 2010 the first week of March with a whole new group of volunteers. A new year is always a fresh start and we wanted to make sure that these new volunteers got off to a great start so we made some time to have demo lessons and meet several times to make sure everyone knew what they where doing. Once a volunteer has good class room management and plans their lessons with care and takes the time, one can see a huge difference in the number of children who return. I am really pleased to say that this past month has seen new children arriving every week to the extent that now we have children sharing seats as we are running out of space ! We have also been able to offer morning classes to the children and my weekly art club is still going strong.
Thanks to all the new volunteers who really have given us a great start to the year. I really hope that those who follow can carry on the great example and standard they have set in motion.

Recital de "La Culta Rock"

2009-12-18T22:33:00.007-03:00

Please join us this Sunday afternoon (20th Dec) for the close of the photography exhibition by the Conviven group "Ojo de Pez".

Conviven band, La Culta Rock, will be playing and Circo Robando Sonrisas will be performing.

Sunday 20th December 2009 from 16:00 - free entry
Venue: la Dirección General de Museos, Av. de los Italianos 851, Puerto Madero

"La Culta Rock" comprises:
Alejandro González (voz y composición)
Eusebio Barrios (guitarra)
Emiliano Suárez (guitarra)
Ramiro Alfoso (bajo eléctrico)
Javier Villca Flores (batería)
Pablo Gallardo (armónica)
Diego Galeano (dirección y arreglos)

Conviven end-of-year party

2009-12-18T22:23:00.003-03:00

Please join us for the Conviven end-of-year party this Saturday 19th December! Classes will be showing their work and there will be circus displays, hip-hop, open photography workshop, dancing and refreshments.

Date: Saturday 19th December, 2009

Time: 16:00 - 20:00

Martiniano Leguizamon 2974, Mataderos/Lugano

Buses 5, 80, 97, 103, 117, 141

Fernando: photos of Circo Festival on Matadero Nov 2008

2009-11-21T20:45:00.014-03:00

Nichole: a rude awakening!

2009-11-21T20:01:00.016-03:00

I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to live abroad in Argentina – to experience the culture, make new friends, and explore new areas. But more than anything, I am thankful that I followed through on my goal to take time during the trip to volunteer.

I remember scouring the Internet looking for organizations that offered volunteer programs. I had not realized how challenging it could be to find opportunities to donate time, so it came as a huge relief when I found Conviven, an NGO that promoted social and community development. The center only required your time and dedication to their after school English program. Conviven was located in the Ciudad Oculta, known for the poverty affecting 10,000 of its citizens. As I prepared to begin, I was excited about the possibility of learning more about this new culture through the opportunity to help children.

My first day at Conviven I was ready to take charge, and felt I could handle anything. I was in for a rude awakening. I was placed in a class with thirteen children from ages five to eight. I was responsible for teaching them English words and concepts. I quickly learned that I would have to speak Spanish in order for them learn English. I struggled with my rusty Spanish, and at times, the students were my teachers. Hand gestures and acting out themes was routine; I was responsible for their curriculum, and tried to be creative and resourceful. Many students were eager to learn while others were shy and unresponsive.

Over the course of my teaching at Conviven, I was amazed at the different relationships I built with the students and volunteers. The students all became dedicated and responsive to my teaching style. I was thankful for each student that came to class after attending a full day of school.

I realized it was the small triumphs that made the difference. Many students were not going to conquer the English language in the time I was there, but their dedication to working relentlessly makes me believe that they will master the language in the future, and reminded me that with persistence and dedication, any goal can be achieved.

Serge: my first day as a volunteer with Conviven

2009-11-21T19:45:00.009-03:00

Serge from Austria started work with Conviven in November 2009. This is his account of his first day:

It feels fantastic over here! Today I had my first meeting with the NGO Conviven that I'll be working with and it made a big impression. It's a modest facility with little means, situated on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. I need an hour to get there by bus and it's not the best area (I finally needed much longer because there was a demonstration going on organised by the unions - literally thousands of protesters in a procession moving up the the Avenue 9 Julio, the main artery of the city).

The children at Conviven really benefit from the good work the organisation does. The kids aged from 6 to 12 benefit from English language classes but also from art and theatre workshops and other things. They all come from underprivileged families and the government education system for them is terrible. The classes are overflowing with 40 children sometimes and the teachers are often unqualified. They can participate voluntarily and for free in the organisation's classes and activities, which is of course intended to give them useful real-world skills but in large part also just to get them off the streets and expose them to positive-minded role-models from whom they get far more attention than in their public schools.

The organisation, Conviven, is badly equipped and always needing basic materials such as books, stationary etc. But the people working there are full of heart and are all wonderful positive individuals. They are from international backgrounds and most of them are young students volunteering during a gap year or in combination with their education or are simply doing it on the side while working. But there are also people who have come for no other reason than to do good and make a small but precious difference in a community whose youth desperately needs that kind of positive influence. Tomorrow I will be supporting another volunteer in holding an art class which is becoming increasingly popular with the children.

Although today was my first day with Conviven, this evening after work I ended up going with a few colleagues to an event held by other NGOs with the purpose of bringing together volunteer organisations (who are active in Argentina but also other South American nations) for exchange and meeting. All volunteers and would-be volunteers were also invited. The purpose of the event was for NGOs to acquaint themselves with other NGOs and make ties as well as for prospective volunteers to find out about volunteering options and to meet organisations with different aims and needs. I can tell you there was a lot of positive energy and goodwill in that room. I have never seen something like it and it was invigorating! We even recruited two volunteers, one teacher and another to organise the library and improve the website http://www.conviven.org.ar/

On Friday I will be assisting an NGO that combats AIDS, called Fundacion Huesped, in making a movie which they make once every year, and which will be showing on Argentinian television on international Aids day December st. Apparently they need extras to play the role of students. This is their website: http://www.huesped.org.ar/ I made many interesting encounters at that NGO conference with positive-minded people and it turned out to be a very fruitful evening. It feels like there is so much happening and that there are so many options. Its very exciting and I'm looking forward with much hope and optimism.

Photo Exhibition

2009-10-23T12:57:00.000-03:00

Desde el sábado 7 /11 hasta el domingo 29 /11, Ojo de Pez presenta Fotografías 2007/2009 + videos 2009, en la Dirección General de Museos: avenida de los italianos 851 - Puerto Madero, lunes a domingos de 9 a 19 hs. Inauguración sábado 7 de Noviembre 16:00hs.

Event

2009-10-23T12:43:00.000-03:00

Free Concert

2009-08-05T12:07:00.001-03:00

Ojo de Pez

2009-07-10T21:05:00.002-03:00

Ojo de Pez is an ongoing photography project working with teenagers in Villa Lugano.
The project is based at Conviven and I am happy to be able to attach their new Blog.
If you have the time it really is worth looking at.

http://ojodepeztalleres.blogspot.com/

An overdue "Thank You" is in order to former Conviven volunteers:

2009-05-27T12:30:00.000-03:00

Liis Kangsepp
Joshua Cox
Raffaella Gazzola

They have individually raised money for Conviven after returning home from friends, family and associates. Conviven would not be able to provide all the services it does to the children and families of the neighboring community without the support of its Volunteers. With the money they raised we were able to:

renovate the kitchen (see pictures)
fix the bathrooms in the jardin and upstairs
fix the water tank
install kitchen fixtures
install a heater and complete piping work for heating throughout conviven
fix electricty in the computer lab

As the staff and students currently at Conviven know, these fixes were long overdue and we really appreciate the generosity of the aforementioned Volunteers who made them possible. Conviven does not charge volunteers fees to join its organization and survives through voluntary donations from friends, family and former volunteers. We strongly believe that the experience each person gains at Conviven will convert to lifelong supporters of Conviven.

Again thank you, thank you, thank you!

Art Club

2009-05-26T14:38:00.002-03:00

Thursday afternoons, once English classes are all done the children all squeeze into one room for my Art class. This class has kids ranging from 5 to 15 yrs all with a crazy excitement to create a mess and something fun. They get to make things like finger puppets, collages, clay figures. They learn about famous artists and how everyone of them is able to create great pieces of art. At the moment we have 25 kids which is a great deal in ways of lack of space and materials. We have kids sharing chairs or just having to stand but they have a great time so that 's all that matters. What we do need is resources, for 25 kids you can end up needing a lot of things. I spend most weeks searching the attic of Conviven for odd bits and pieces finding old card, pasta, rice, paper cups and of course if you think hard enough you can create something from nothing.

The new kitchen!

2009-03-20T22:30:00.003-03:00

Since the moment I arrived at Conviven, over a year ago I heard the on going grones at the state of the kitchen. Our kitchen serves not only the center but also the kinder garden as well as the local community. As new volunteers arrived and old ones left I found them handing me money, trusting that I would put it where it was needed. We began to think that if we called in a few favours and digged deep that we may in fact be able to raise the large amount which would result in an upgraded kitchen. As grotty as it was, it was still the heart of the community center and we began to imaging what a difference a new improved one could make. After some very generouse donations and fundraisers by current and old volunteers the money was finaly raised and the work began. Today a year on from when I arrived at conviven we sit contentily in a bright clean yellow kitchen drinking Mate.

A special thanks to Liis, Madie, Mrs Koerfer, Alex, Murielle and Sil and all the others that made it possible.

Ojo de Pez

2009-03-19T18:10:00.001-03:00

Photo Exhibition

2009-03-19T10:48:00.003-03:00

A New Term

2009-02-23T13:33:00.002-02:00

The academic year starts next week the 2nd of March. This will also be the date that Conviven will be re opening its doors to offer free English classes to the local community. We mostly have small groups of children aged 5 to 14. We will need enthusiastic motivated volunteers to teach these lovely children. If you are interested in helping please e mail us at-

volunteersconviven@gmail.com

classes will be on mOnday, Wednesday and Thursdays 3 -6 pm.

Feliz Año Nuevo!!!

2009-01-10T17:13:00.000-02:00

End of school Year.

2009-01-02T17:20:00.003-02:00

In December we put together a small end of year party for the children and their parents. All the children who took part in the English course where given a certificate according to the level they had achieved. We then had a small fire throwing show by one of the volunteers, John, followed by a circus performance by some of the children. We had music and games and where happy that so many of the parents where also able to attend. The children where all given Christmas hats and their bellies filled full of foods. The volunteers also celebrated a job well down with a glass of sparkle on our own terrace.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL THE CHILDREN THEIR PARENTS ALL THE VOLUNTEERS AND FRIENDS OF CONVIVEN.

FELIZ NAVIDAD Y BUENO ANO NUEVO A TODOS LOS AMIGOS DE CONVIVEN.

THANKS FOR THIS YEAR 2008!

2008-12-30T19:47:00.001-02:00

(Click on image for larger view)

Ojo de Pez

2008-11-30T17:56:00.005-02:00

(click to view larger image)

Ojo de Pez - Exhibition in the Senate

Images taken by students in workshops of digital photography 2007-2008
Ojo de Pez at Conviven, School of Education Media 2 to 20 in the
Institute Manuel Belgrano.

Audiovisual Arts Workshops:
It is a collective that makes audio-visual arts workshops as a tool of
socialization and aims to create a space for artistic education, with
community protection, a place to explore, confront, and individually
and collectively generate artistic expression in young people deprived
of their liberty or expelled socially.

Conducted and supported by:

www.ojodepez.org.ar

Tarde de cine en Conviven

2008-11-28T17:27:00.013-02:00

El sábado sabado 15 de noviembre de las 15h hasta las 18h30 se llevó a cabo la tarde de cine en el Centro Conviven. Contó con la participación de aproximadamente 30 personas: madres, adolecentes y sobre todo chicos y niños.

Primero se mostró "Indiana Jones y la Calavera de Cristal", uno de los últimos estrenos del cine. Según los voluntarios a cargo también iba a marcar el el fin de la proyección. Pero por el entusiasmo de los niños lo reconsideraron. Con el permiso de los padres y trás una votación unívoca entre los chicos se proyectó la película de los "Simpson" no proyectada en primer lugar por no ser reciente y ya famosísima.

Al final todos se fueron felices (pero cansados) a sus casas y se llevaron los recuerdos de una linda Tarde de cine en Conviven.

2008-11-25T13:33:00.003-02:00

Invitation to a Conviven event at "Casa Natura" on nov. 29th
For larger view click on the image!

Teaching English, Adrianna G. 2009

2008-11-08T13:08:00.010-02:00

After arriving in Buenos Aires, with nothing but a few friends and a 3-month lease, I began a search for places to volunteer and came across Conviven. Though the one hour bus ride can be a bit tiring, the "trek" is awarded with a bustling center full of heart and energy.

I began my volunteer experience by accompanying the center on their summer trips to pools and parks. Not only did I meet other volunteers from numerous international countries, but I also met children ranging in ages from 4-15 years. Their interests in my background sparked conversations about music and impromptu English lessons, as well as the opportunity for me to learn about them and their lives. I remember fondly a young girl from Peru who had also recently moved to Buenos Aires. We shared our stories and feelings of moving to a different city.

With the start of the school year, I have been teaching English classes for the past few months, to the youngest class of students, ranging in age from 5 to 11 years old. With other volunteers helping out in the classroom, we have begun to teach these young and absorbent minds about fruits, animals, hobbies, transportation, and art. With almost no teaching experience, I have helped to feed their interests to learn English and witnessed young minds soar!

Adrianna Gluck [ New York]

Transforming the Conviven Center......

2008-10-15T16:20:00.004-03:00

So the work on the kitchen at Conviven has finally begun. The builders have moved in and started the task of renovating a much worn down kitchen. It has begun with enthusiasm from all quarters: Carmen, the "housekeeper/cook/guardian of children and building” is over the moon about a new kitchen from which to work from, the volunteers can see the new beginnings of an essential part of the Conviven center and the children look on with bemusement at the dust and banging. Walls have been knocked down, and a start has been made on redoing the plumbing system.

The grand plan is for a new sink, for ceramics to be placed around the kitchen and sink which will make cleaning and hygiene far easier to deal with. There will be new work surfaces and cupboards. A ventilator is going to be installed and the very antiquated gas pipes are going to be dealt with by a gas specialist. There will be new lights and plugs also put in.

To help the cause of the kitchen we wore white and sported great hats last week at a fundraiser party at Bella´s house. It was a great success and 1700 pesos were raised. However starting to renovate a kitchen is no mean feat and it is clear that a kitchen is made of two parts. The actual room, and the objects that make it up. There is a pressing need for a new oven as the present one is far too old. So if anyone could donate towards that or even has an oven to give we would be very grateful. Equally Carmen has pointed out that there is a need for a door with a lock to the kitchen so that children don’t wander in and get hurt.

The kitchen at Conviven lies at the heart of the center, and so any help would massively improve the children’s experience whilst they are here, and of course aid Carmen’s task in looking after them all. The volunteers are awaiting the day when they can get stuck into pots of paint and decorate it. For the moment however, this big project has finally begun.

By Miranda Lerner, Volunteer.

Summer Holidays

2008-10-08T14:57:00.003-03:00

I wanted to pre warn new volunteers in plenty of time that the big summer holidays start here around the 16th of December and last till the beginning of March. Most children in Buenos Aires will leave the city for some of this time to avoid the heat and get some fresh air. Even the kids from the villas who come to Conviven for english classes will get a chance to go to summer camps which are organized by the state. They tend to go away to camp in January so this is why there will be no volunteering opportunities avaliable in this month. If you are planning a trip here and wish to volunteer please keep this in mind.

Volunteering without a Fee

2008-09-27T21:30:00.006-03:00

Dear Future & Present Volunteers:

Just wanted to give you an update on the status of Conviven’s Asocacion Civil (for those of you not familiar with the term it’s the official registration to become a certified NGO). We have a hearing with AFIP on Sept. 30th and will be given a Tax ID number and thirty days later will find out if all our paperwork has been approved. Marcelo Dreon, an attorney who works with Conviven, is assisting with this legal process and without his support we would not be able to get this done this quickly and inexpensively. He’s been a star. Since we are only one step away from becoming independent, Valmir, the dedicated head of Conviven expressed his unhappiness of working with registered NGO’s who charge people to come to Argentina to volunteer. In fact he has always opposed this practice but accepted volunteers from organization like Help Argentina, BA Volunteers and Coined because Conviven simply needed their support to recruit volunteers and donations.

It’s important that everyone who has worked with Conviven in the past and for those who are considering working with us in the future to understand that the organizations mentioned above charge volunteers over $300 to place them IN organization like Conviven. However those organizations only end up receiving 1/3 (33%) of that fee and sometimes they get nothing. Now that we are on the road to independence we no longer will accept volunteers from Help, Coined or BA Volunteers because Conviven and Valmir strongly disagree with the practice of charging Volunteers. With that said, I want you all to realize that Conviven cannot exist without Volunteers like you. Our Volunteer coordinator, Bella, has been diligent about recruiting Volunteers who reach out to us directly through this blog and the main web page and so far it looks like her efforts have secured a steady flow of new Volunteers.

We want to take the opportunity to thank the past volunteers for their support. They spread the word of Conviven to friends and family and support Conviven through their own donations,

Without your generosity we would not be able to continue providing the services and support to the community of Ciudad Oculta. And it is important for new Volunteers to continue the tradition of supporting our initiative at Conviven so that we can continue to help and touch the lives of the less fortunate. Your support through Volunteering is much appreciated and your financial support is also welcomed. Without donations our organization will not survive so please help us with as much as you can.

I can provide bank instructions for donations so please feel free to email me at atsalas@gmail.com. As soon as Conviven has the official Asocacion Civil status we will open our own bank account and set up a Pay pal and Dineromail account to make it easier for you to donate.

Again, thanks so much for your support.

Alexandra Salas

Advice from a departed volunteer.

2008-09-09T10:47:00.002-03:00

Tuve la suerte de pasar cinco meses en Conviven. Fueron cinco meses inolvidables… Podrían haber sido aburridos, podría no haber aprendido nada pero no fue así. No fue así porque no quise que así sea, pasé mucho tiempo trabajando por “Conviven”, preparando clases, pensando en lo que seria interesante aportar…Porqué pienso que es algo que hay que hacer para realmente aprender de esta oportunidad que no está dando de ser voluntarios en otra parte del mundo. Comprometerse. Para construir una relación de confianza con los niños y otros voluntarios del Centro, para aprender de ellos aun mas que todo lo que podemos aprenderlos…

Podría haber hecho mucho más pero no menos. Porqué si hubiera hecho menos no hubiera tenido este sentimiento de orgullo a ver mis alumnos disfrutar sus clases, no hubiera podido establecer tan buena relaciones con personas que fueron las personas claves de mi estancia en Buenos Aires tal como Carmen y todos mis pequeños estudiantes…

Participar en este programa nos da la posibilidad de encontrar gente especial, de vivir experiencias inolvidables y pienso que no hay que gastar esta posibilidad supuestamente por “falta de tiempo”. Estos niños son cada uno especiales aun si para darse cuenta de eso hay que primero conseguir su confianza y su interés porqué claro a su edad a veces es difícil tener tanto interés en aprender inglés o otra cosa pero justamente ¡¡eso es el trabajo de los “profes”!!
Bueno eso es el consejo que quiero dar a los futuros “profes”: ¡¡Que tengan paciencia e imaginación que estos niños se merecen la pena!! ¡¡¡Hay muchas cosas interesantes por hacer con ellos más que clases de inglés pero hay que tener mucha voluntad porqué no es siempre fácil organizarse!!!

¡¡Suerte y que disfruten su experiencia tanto como yo disfrute de mi estancia en Buenos Aires y sobre todo en Conviven!!

Marie, from France

Wishlist

2008-08-06T15:17:00.003-03:00

Every person who volunteers in a community center will have moments of, "If only I had this one other thing!" Sometimes they are simple conveniences or small improvements, and some are essential for carrying out daily activities, but most are things that could dramatically improve the classrooms and quality of lesson plans and classes. The things we wish for don't have to be new, and many things that people discard for their own use would work well for us. In case you have anything or know anyone who might, here's a list of a few of the things Conviven wishes for:

Musc equipment for the young-
Amplifiers of 80 watts, microphones, batteries, light, CD music player, lights for theater plays, acoustic panels, sound mixing board.

Circus work shops-
CLAVAS, juggling balls, swings, flags, unicycle, trapeze, SLINGAS, ropes and fabric, stilts, rings, colorful clothes, foam mattress, rubber flooring(16 sq. meters, each sheet 1x1 meters), ALAPARGATAS slipper shoes, and any other kind of circus materials-- Our dream is to be able to get a structure of 10 meters in height to allow air acrobatics.

For the kindergarten (2-5 years old)-
Learning games, rubber flooring, bags, tooth brushes, color pencils, soap, misc. games, seesaw, slids, tricycle, playpen, baby changer, medical kit, lice killer shampoo and comb, swim wear, goggles, towels, flip-flops, heater, pen drives for computer, USB.

Primary-
Notebooks, shoes size 29-40, school bags, paper for binders, clay, glue, paint, scissors, rulers, rubber erasers, pencil sharpeners, tape, blocks of paper, black pencils.

Computer stuff-
Software: learning programs and educational programs.

Games for kids (6-12 yrs)-
Footballs, volleyballs, basketballs, sports shirts, football shirts, swimwear, towels, backpacks, goggles, sleeping bags, tents, camping mats.

Others-
A projectors to play movies for whole community, 2-4 laptops (used or new, but with DVD), digital cameras for juvenile hall, educational videos for juvi prisons, paint for external works, cleaning products, toilet paper, kitchen rolls, rubbish bags, bug repellent, deoderant, kicthen utensils, writing paper and envelopes, blank CDs, computer speakers, hard disks, one television, three portable stereos, telephones, copy machine, fans, video cameras, memories cards for digital cameras, clay oven for ceramics.

We know this is a large list and we can't have it all, but if you have something we could use, or know anyone who might, we will greatly appreciate any and all donations.
Pease contact us at our conviven web page or me directly at - switchfakee@hotmail.com
Thanks Bella

Malba Kids Movie

2008-07-22T12:02:00.005-03:00

If you go to the Youtube link below you can see some of our kids making their very own mini movie.

They where kindly invited by the Malba Art Museum of Buenos Aires to spend the morning making their very own short film. The kids had a blast and loved seeing themselves on the big screen.

It the link does not work just go to youtube and search Conviven Malba.

un beso

Bella

Looking for Volunteers

2008-06-24T22:24:00.002-03:00

hi with the cold weather bearing down on BA it seems that those with time to give have gone to warmer parts. We find ourselves quickly diminishing in numbers and even though we will always cope with whatever numbers we have it would be nice to have an extra pair of hands. The kids are as keen as ever to learn and most will come to their english classes regardless of the freezing weather. Anyone with a willingness to give all in oder to make sure the kids have a memorable class are welcome. Those who feel less sure about their teaching skills can always pair up with a more confident volunteer. The minimum amount of stay needs to be at least 2 weeks.

If you are interested please contact me and if you decide to come wrap warm !

un beso

Bella

Graffiti Taller

2008-05-24T12:31:00.003-03:00

These past few weeks has seen an impressive graffiti workshop taking place at Conviven. A volunteer from Norway Sgur Seibt came to Buenos Aires to visit his girlfriend who is working as a volunteer at Conviven. They came up with the idea that as he was here he could do his own graffiti workshop with the kids. The project took some planning and of course fundraising on their part to be able to get all the spray cans needed for the project. The project would involve spraying the entrance hall way of the center and also some seperate workshops with youths in a prison. All of us have been very impressed with Sgur and Siri's commitment and hard work. The results are breathtaking and now every time I go to work I am reminded how much can be achieved when a person is really willing to get their hands stuck in.

Thanks guys! We are really gonna miss you.

Road Trip

2008-05-17T13:02:00.004-03:00

Saturday saw us all venture out of the city for a much needed break.

Armed with snacks, drinks, a guitar and a frisbee, we made the journey in a SUV and an exhausted old car to an Estancia 2 hours from Buenos Aires.

A dirt track coming off the highway led us to our picture -perfect sleepy ranch. In the neighbouring fields, horses grazed and locals played polo. After the clamour of the big city,

this place was perfect.

Those of us feeling a bit gaucho tried our hands at horse riding. The guys at the ranch cooked us up a mouth watering 'asado' on an open fire. A few of the group went to watch a polo match, while the rest of u entertained ourselves with football, volleyball and a frisbee.

When everyone regrouped at dusk, we gathered around the fire- Nate played us some tunes on the guitar and made us all happy.

All in all, a pretty sweet day......

[ Arjun ]

Cecilia: An experience for life

2008-05-12T07:50:00.001-03:00

Everyone should take the opportunity to become a volunteer. That is my conclusion after working as a volunteer at Conviven for nearly 2.5 months, writes our former volunteer Cecilia from Sweden.

Being a part of a team and knowing that your effort and contribution matters is a good feeling, as well as dedicating your time to people that are less fortunate than you when it comes to education, work, health and opportunities in life. A few years back, I actually attended a program called the corporate community and engagement program, a program meant to prepare its participants for the future workforce by organising volunteer placements. Back then, I was too busy with university and my part-time job to really appreciate my volunteer placement. As you probably can imagine, I did not stay for a very long time.

Therefore, when deciding to go to Argentina to work as a volunteer, I decided to take some serious time off in order to really be able to enjoy my stay, as well as making a difference, if not a great one, at least a small one that would matter to someone. And as a result, my experience became a totally different one. Being able to see the progress the kids make at class, as well as the improvements that take place thanks to dedicated staff and volunteers is really a good feeling. Also, the opportunity of becoming a part of a different kind of lifestyle and culture.

I can only hope that the future volunteers will take care of Conviven in the same way as the present and old volunteers have. And not forgetting that their time and experience here also will be one for life.

Fundraiser on Labour Day

2008-05-12T05:49:00.000-03:00

Of course I plan a fundraiser for Conviven on the same day as a national holiday, Labour Day, in Argentina, writes our fundraising coordinator Alex Salas.

Despite this case of bad planning on my part the night was a big success. We are trying to secure an "Asocacion Civil sin fines de lucro" status, which is a legal filing that confirms Conviven's non profit status and legally registers the organization as an NGO. With the title, which must be processed by a lawyer, accountant or notary, Conviven can operate as an independent organization, open a bank account and raise funds that will go directly to Conviven and its community.

Conviven has operated since 1994, but has remained under the guidance of other NGO's like Help Argentina. They have been wonderful in supporting Conviven, but as is the case in all walks of life, it’s time for Conviven to spread its wings and operate independently. We feel that this will be the first step in the long and successful journey that Conviven will embark on. We have the foundation, the leader, the volunteers and more importantly the CHILDREN who are eager to learn, build and excel.

Through friends and family we managed to raise quite a lot of money which will go directly to the process of securing the Asocacion Civil. We are well under way and look forward to the new path that awaits Conviven.

Thank you to the volunteers of Conviven who helped entertain that night! You were great and I couldn't have managed with you.

Conviven Timetable

2008-05-05T17:10:00.004-03:00

As term time goes into its third month we now have a clear weekly schedule, reports our on-site volunteer coordinator Bella.

Our working week at Conviven is the following:

On Mondays /Wednesday/Thursday 3.30-5.30 PM we give English classes for both children and adults. We have 2 adult classes and 6 children classes running at these times.
On Tuesday and Friday morning 10-11am we also teach english to a small group of children.
Monday 5.30-6.30pm we have Theater and Games.
Thursday 5.30-6.30pm Arts and Crafts.

Each class has between 6 and 12 children. The adult classes tend to be smaller.

However we are always happy to start new classes if someone comes with good ideas and is willing to run and organise the class. This person also needs to be able to commit for at least 2 months.

The center has many other things going on like photography, computer classes, mirco banking and music lesson. These are all run by long term volunteers at the center.

Courtney: Conviven makes Buenos Aires feel like home

2008-04-07T22:59:00.002-03:00

When I walked into Conviven, my life felt like it was finally starting to come together again, confesses our volunteer Courtney, 19 year old girl from Canada who started volunteering at Conviven in March and will stay with us until May.

"At the time I had been living in Buenos Aires for about one and a half months, and was finding my self feeling completely lost, lonely and disconnected from the world around me.

Getting involved in a project such as this made me feel like I was part of something greater than myself, evidently helping me to better immerse myself in the culture and appreciate the different sides Argentina has to offer.

With the incredible people and amazing children being the essences of the community center, it would be an understatement to say that it’s beautiful. Conviven is the place, that for me, made Buenos Aires feel like home, and for that, I can honestly say that it’s been, and will continue to be one of the best experiences of my life."

A New School Year Begins

2008-03-17T11:33:00.000-03:00

Finally after what seems like an endless summer the children of Conviven have started to show their little ever smiling faces, reports our new volunteer coordinator Bella.

English classes where meant to begin at Conviven 2 weeks ago but due to terrible down pours lasting over a week most of our classes where cancelled as where those of the main stream schools.

We now have 4 kids English classes running 3 afternoons a week along with classes for adults and teenagers. Some children will also be coming in the mornings as the children in Buenos Aires have school either in the mornings or afternoons and we want to give them all the chance to come to Conviven.

It s really nice for me to see the enthusiasm and energy the volunteers are putting into their classes and hearing the kids laughter through the closed doors makes all the hard work worth while.

Get your hands on Conviven's gym

2008-02-23T23:38:00.002-02:00

We are planning an exciting, hands-on volunteer opportunity in the form of 'Paint the Gymnasium!' part 2. Thanks to our friends from South American Explorers, who made the first effort on January 26th, we are already about 1/3 finished with the project. We are hoping to finish with the help of a couple of volunteer teams in the first week of March. We will be renting equipment to reach the higher, harder to reach places and will be needing both volunteers and donations to get the job done and to cover the costs of equipment rental.

Important! To finish the job we need to prepare the walls, and apply two successive coats of paint, which will require at least two or three volunteer days because of the scope of the project and the necessary drying time between coats.

Also, the equipment rental is costly and we will only have it for a 5 day period, hopefully beginning the first of March, a Saturday, until the 5th of March. The travel time is about one hour from downtown BsAs and the painting shift will be roughly from 10am to 3pm, and more details will be provided once we know we have the man-woman power. So please, please, please RSVP with your availability as soon as possible so that we can know if we have enough volunteers to get the job done. If we don't have a minimum of volunteers then the project is a no-go and we will be missing an opportune opportunity!

The school year is approaching and this is the best time to get the job done, sorry we know it is a little short notice, but please let us know if any of you wonderful people can commit to a shift on one or all of the first 5 days of March, beginning on Saturday the 1st. Again, we will quickly do the math, make teams for the different days, and get back to the coalition of the willing to confirm.

Please email with questions or comments Nathaniel (Nate) Galea, nathanielgalea@gmail.com, or Cecilia Hellstadius, ceciliahellstadius@hotmail.com.

A mindblowing beach trip

2008-02-17T16:00:00.016-02:00

Last week our kids had the opportunity to spend some time camping in Lucila del Mar to enjoy a fabulous beach trip. Our new volunteer coordinator Bella Koerfer reports.

Over 40 kids between the age of 11 and 17 spent over a week at the beach with us and as you can well imagine had a fantastic time.

The place was a six hour bus drive form Buenos Aires and the kids clapped with delight as the movies began and we breathed with a sigh of relief as we realised we could at least relax for the next 6 hours.

The camp consisted of six dorms interlinked and a large main hall, the best was that this was all walking distance from the beach. The kids had a tight routine in an attempt to keep them in order but to be honest all they wanted was beach, beach and more beach, with some football and volley matches thrown in.

One day Jess and me took the kids riding which was just perfect total caos with everyone smiling, horses galloping here and there and incredibly no one falling off! This was my favourite moment and a picture I will always keep in my head.

In the evenings there were group trips into town, walks along the beach and on the last night a Talent night. As the days passed the kids got browner, the romances confused, the volunteers just got exhausted. When the time to leave came, you felt like you had been there 6 weeks!

Most of us adults came home sick with bits, sore throats and exhaustion, but of course it was all worth it, as the relationships you are able to form with the children, in that short time are priceless.

Last weeks in Conviven

2008-02-06T22:43:00.003-02:00

Our last weeks have been relatively busy despite the fact that kids are on holidays. First of all our new volunteer coordinator took over. Bella is now fully in charge of everything and Liis has left.

Also we took the kids to visit Latin-American Modern Art Museum – Malba. After waiting for the bus for some half an hour and then getting lost since the driver didn’t really know where the place is, we arrived at Malba on Friday, the 25^th of January.

The kids had a wonderful experience where Malba staff introduced them to Emilio, Petorruti, Antonio Berni and other Argentine artists whose works are up on the walls. After that everybody had a chance to make some art as well. You can have a look at the pictures taken in Malba here.

On the following day we cooperated with volunteers from South American Explorers who helped us to paint some of the walls downstairs in the big hall. We had about ten people in the house.

On Tuesday, 29^th of January some of our volunteers went to Banco de Alimentos to help them with sorting all the food that had been donated during December and the day after that the kids went to a beach trip on Lucila del Mar and you can read more about that from our next post.

New volunteer coordinator takes over

2008-01-24T11:18:00.000-02:00

Our new on-site volunteer coordinator has been getting to know Conviven for over a week now and here are Bella’s first thoughts about her new job and Conviven. Bella arrived from London and will be with us for a year.

“My role as I see it is making sure that there are enough activities for both volunteers and children – both should feel involved and looked after. At the moment things are rather slow at Conviven as most of the kids are at summer camps, I – however – seem to have lots to do with organizing new volunteers, responding to all of Liis mails and working out how things are done this side of the world.

All in all after a few days of total confusion am beginning to feel really at home which is pretty good after only a week. All the people at Conviven have been really lovely and I do love the place – it really has a lot of potential, it just needs people to really get involve and come up with great activities for the kids. Dale, need to get back to work.”

Jess: Their spirit is infectious

2008-01-21T10:34:00.000-02:00

The classes in Ciudad Oculta have also started with new energy, although due to the fact that a lot of the kids are in day camps right now, the classes are smaller and quieter.

As we currently do not have a dance teacher, one of the workshops was changed and now we just play games with them on one of the days. Our volunteer Jess reports about the “Sala de juegos” that took place last week.

“As I and three other volunteers made our way into Ciudad Oculta, we were greeted by 12 children, aged from 1-11. As always, the children were excited to see us, and keen to play as many games in the hour as possible. Franco, the ever enthusiastic toddler, ran screaming around the room in a burst of excited energy.

We started playing outside in the sunshine. Sandwiched between a wall and a fence, we played “what time is it Mr. Wolf?”, followed by “What am I?”, a particular favourite among the kids. This involved the group splitting into two teams, each taking it in turns to imitate (in silence) an action, object, event, or location.

Once the other teams shouts out/ guesses the correct answer, the performing team has to run away without being caught & thus absorbed into the other team. This is often complicated by the fact that the children chose to imitate inanimate objects, such as gnocchi!

Following some more energetic games, we decided to move inside for the last 15 minutes. A round of the firm favourite- Simon Says (or Simon Dice) enduced a fit of giggles when “Simon” instructed the children to touch the heads of the older teenage boys, who were standing on the side-lines. Needless to say, the older boys were not too amused when 12 hysterical children ran at them, trying to touch their heads. To complete the session we played charades, and “duck goose”.

The children in Ciudad Oculta always welcome us with open arms & big smiles. Their enthusiasm & spirit is infectious, and their ability to play & enjoy what little they have is remarkable and humbling. Maria Rosa and various members of her family are always at hand and provide an invaluable place of safety for both the children and the volunteers.”

Conviven back in business

2008-01-18T16:25:00.000-02:00

After a silent month Conviven is back on track. We have once again started the classes inside Ciudad Oculta and have picked up some new private English students at Conviven.

Next week we’ll go to a day camp to distribute flayers about our summer activities and after that we’ll hopefully have more kids to play with (at the moment we are just dealing with classes in Ciudad Oculta and private English students at Conviven).

Also as some of you might know, my time at Conviven is almost up. A year has passed by very quickly. There is a new person, Bella from the UK to take over my things and hopefully also this weblog!

PH15 exhibition in Las Vegas

2008-01-18T16:10:00.000-02:00

The Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery, University of Nevada Las Vegas is pleased to host, "ph15: Young Photographers from Argentina," an exhibition of photographs by 29 young photographers and their teachers. It opens January 14, 2008 and runs through February 15, 2008 with a reception Friday, January 25 from 7 to 9 in the gallery.

University of Nevada, 4505 Maryland Parkway
Las Vegas, NV 89154-5002 United States

Phone 1 (702) 895-3893

Mo-Fri from 9AM to 5PM & Sat from 10AM to 2 PM
http://donnabeamgallery.unlv.edu

The ph15 workshop takes place at Conviven every week. In the beginning of their relationship with the sponsoring foundation, students are given cameras, which they are allowed to keep for life if they complete the first two-years of the program. The aim of the project is to teach kids the creative power of photography by giving them a form of expression that reflects their own values and culture.

You can read morea bout ph15 from their website.

What did we do in 2007?

2008-01-17T15:31:00.000-02:00

Here is a list of things we did during the second half of 2007. Unfortunately there are no records about what happened at Conviven before that, so if you remember any events that you helped to organise before June 2007, send the information to kangsepp at gmail dot com. thank you!

Teach English Programme
Took place: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, 15.30-17.30 from February to December
Description: Teaching English to children in different age groups. The programme run relatively well and due to a bigger amount of volunteers we were able to provide a more individual approach. Kids knew their class time schedule and behaved (more or less). By December we had about 20-30 regular students and about 10-15 people who showed up every now and then. The kids were divided into groups according to their level.
Further plans: Finding a project manager for the programme who could be involved in creating a better curriculum, getting contact information of the students (so that we could prevent kids from falling out), getting more kids to show up.

Reorganising Teach English Programme
Took place: August 2007
Description: Since students in each class were on a very different level, we made a test to divide them up in order to improve the teaching process.
Everybody took the 3 pages long test and after that A, B and C groups were formed, A being the lowest and C being the highest level. Today the test is used on new students.
Further plans: having a test every month or every two months in order to see the progress.

Creating a curriculum and a system of classroom records
Took place: Oct-Nov 2007
Description: Every level was provided with their own binder that has appropriate worksheets in them. We went through some books to find worksheets and made some our own sheets, also photocopied everything. A system to maintain the folders was created.
Also every group has sort of a guideline for curriculum, attendance and progress sheets. Teachers are actively using the binders and they provide great help. Attendance and progress sheets are not filled as regularly as should.
Further plans: Finding a person who could only deal with the curriculum and binders (finding new worksheets, making sure the teachers fill in all the information about classes etc).

Creating a weblog
Took place: July-August 2007
Description: putting together information about Conviven and how to volunteer with us in order to find new volunteers and also keep in touch with the old ones. Publishing information, news and stories about Conviven on http://www.centroconviven.blogspot.com/. We have managed to get other volunteers involved in creating content and we have a some regular readers. Already people interested in volunteering have found Conviven through the weblog.
Further plans: Getting more content and news to the site, finding more links. Getting the page to appear in search engines so that potential volunteers could find us more easily. Ideally finding an editor who could deal with updating weblog on a daily basis.

Creating a volunteer coordinator position
Took place: June 2007
Description: In order to build a better organisational system, a long term volunteer was taken out of being a teacher. Liis started dealing with everything else, such as being in touch with new potential volunteers, coordinating volunteers at Conviven, keeping things under control, starting new projects, even being a secretary for Valmir. Creating that position has improved things at Conviven. Because of that we have more volunteers and it is easier to get along at Conviven for the short term volunteers.
At the moment Liis is about to leave her position and Bella is about to take over.

Creating a welcome kit for the new volunteers
Took place: June 2007
Description: Some documents were put together to make it easier for the new volunteers to understand Conviven and the kids that come there. Originally the kit contained a sheet with contact information, short description of people working at Conviven, short introduction of Conviven as an organisation, some rules and overview of Teach English programme. Today volunteers say the welcome kit helped them a lot, but also some new content should be added. Also the list of rules has grew longer with time.

Creating a volunteer database
Took place: June 2007
Description: We created a folder with the contact information of volunteers. All the new volunteers need to fill in a contact information sheet, all the data will be inserted to an excel table after that and the sheets are kept at Conviven. Before there were no records of how many volunteers have been working at Conviven, where were they from or how to get in touch with them after they’ve left.
Today the database has already helped us with fundraising and keeping in touch with people who used to work at Conviven.

Fundraisers
We had different fundraisers on the second half of the year, making some money for Conviven. Some of the money was used to send Nahuel to compete in Turkey, some of it is still waiting to be invested in central heating or something else useful for Conviven.

Clean up day
Took place: 8th of November 2007
Description: We organised the space above the classrooms, reorganised the big hall a little, washed windows, walls and floors and threw out a lot of rubbish. We managed to get another cupboard for our stuff. Hopefully we have the time and manpower to reorganise kitchen in January and also get some painting done at the same time.

Mi pequeño hogar del dia
Started: 22nd of October 2007
Description: We started giving art, theatre, dance and English classes inside Ciudad Oculta. The classes became popular immediately.

Field trip to the park
Took place: 3rd of November
Description: kids were taken to the park to play and get away from their natural environment. The kids and volunteers had lots of fun.

Helping Nahuel to Turkey
Took place: oct-nov 2007
Description: We fundraised money to send 10 year old Nahuel Rojas to compete World Youth Chess Championships. Now Nahuel is back from Turkey where he had the time of his life.

Starting a library for the volunteers
Took place: Nov 2007
Description: quite many of our volunteers tend to read a lot, but don’t have books with them here in Buenos Aires, so we created a library to help. At the moment we already have more than 20 books, hopefully the amount will grow enough soon to establish a database.

Helping kids with homework and Math
Took place: on and off throughout 2007
Description: some of our volunteers have been helping the kids with their homework and math studies. In the future we would like to get more volunteers on projects like that so we could actually establish a similar programme to Teach English. There is a need for that in the neighbourhood.

Organising the library
Took place: Oct-Dec 2007
Description: creating some sort of order in the books we have on the shelves. After several people tried to organise it, the library still looks very messy, but probably less than half a year ago.

Conviven´s annual festival of end of the year
Took place: Dec 2007
Description: volunteers helped Valmir to organise a festival with different activities to end the year at Conviven. We had the whole day full of music, painting, singing, playing different games etc.

Final English Class

2007-12-17T22:33:00.000-03:00

To celebrate our last English class this year we organised a little party for the kids with diplomas, cherries and juice.

Here are some pictures from last Thursday when we played our last games until March and said good bye to class room rutin.

The English classes have also stopped inside Ciudad Oculta and from 7^th of January we’ll be having a new schedule for summer. Probably there will be activities on three days a week, both in Conviven and Maria Rosa’s house. The schedule has not been finalised yet, but you will have the opportunity to read it ASAP.

Conviven Annual Festival

2007-12-12T15:54:00.001-03:00

Back from Narnia Fairytale

2007-12-05T00:06:00.001-03:00

„Have you seen the film The Chronicles of Narnia,” Nahuel’s dad Ivan asks me when I pop the question how did everything go in Turkey, “coming home was like entering another world again,” he adds emotionally.

Although Nahuel’s life in Ciudad Oculta is not as glamorous as it was in Turkey – after all they live in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires – our 10 year old chess champion is happy. His big brown eyes grow even bigger and start glowing as he speaks how he saw the sea for the first time of his life and even went swimming in it, despite the fact it is already pretty cold in Europe.

According to Ivan Nahuel did not do so great on the championships, collecting just 4 points out of 11, but he also thinks the kid didn’t have the chance to prepare himself properly for the challenge. Especially since them going to Turkey was not sure up to the last minute. “There were a lot of mixed emotions involved,” says Ivan, “Nahuel being on an airplane for the first time in his life, seeing huge snowy mountains and swimming in the sea.”

“But the experience itself was very important,” Ivan adds. “He made some new friends and understood how important it is to learn new languages.”

Nahuel agrees that the trip was worth all the trouble with the money, visas, getting the plane tickets and finally almost missing the opportunity to play. “I liked everything,” Nahuel shrugs his shoulders without knowing what to point out – the Blue Mosque, Taksim square or Grand Bazar in Istanbul or sea and competing with others in Antalya.

“I spoke a little English, made new friends,” is Nahuel kind of shy with words, but agrees that he should try to start sending e-mails in English to all his new friends he made. After all – how often does a 10 year old have the chance to play chess together with 1600 other chess geniuses all around the world?

---------------
If you liked to help us to pay back the debts we’ve made in order to get Nahuel to The World Youth Chess Championships, please do contact Benjamin (boenne at hotmail dot com). We still have 350 USD to pay back and we would like to get that debt off our shoulders as soon as possible.

P.S. the pictures will be uploaded ASAP as Ivan promised to bring us a CD with the photos they made in Turkey.

Theatre workshop progressing

2007-12-02T19:13:00.000-03:00

This last Friday marked the 4th theatre workshop meeting between the Conviven volunteers and the kids from Ciudad Oculta, reports our volunteer Nicole.

The kids, ranging in age from about 3 to 15 greeted us with the standard swing-me-around-until-you-remember-you’re-at-least-twice-my-age and huge gapped smiles. For about the first 10 minutes of the workshop, we shared the space with 5 teenage boys practicing some kind of musical routine on an electronic drum set (the space is actually the converted living room of a neighbourhood woman named Maria Rosa and her husband who in addition to allowing our theatre workshop works with Conviven volunteers to organise art, dance, and English workshops.)

Thankfully, after 10-minutes of uninterrupted musical and acrobatic distraction, the kids were ready to participant in our first group activity. We began with a game of pistolera where the children circle around one person and, once chosen, must quickly sit allowing the two people next to them to dual. The last person to react sits out until the next game.

The game gets progressively harder as fewer and fewer kids are left in the circle and it's less clear who is supposed to be duelling. We chose this particular game to begin to get the kids focused on reacting to each others' sound and movement. As we are interacting more regularly with the kids, we've begun to get a better understanding of what they enjoy and a sense of the creative capacities of many of the children.

We’ve begun to brainstorm ways to build on some of the games that have become staples in the hour-long workshop. For example, one of our volunteers Maria introduced us to a game similar to charades where two teams begin on separate sides of a room.

The teams alternate agreeing on some kind of object or person to act out and then approach the other team whose job it is to continue guessing until they've guessed correctly. The acting team must turn around and try to get back to their side of the room before the guessing team tags them forcing them to switch sides.

The highlight of this week's game was when one team decided to act out "cheese." As the workshop develops, children are becoming increasingly creative with the objects of people they choose to act out and the ways they choose to represent the object or person without using words or props.

The kids saw us off with the standard combination of "chau's" and kisses. Several circled back into line to say bye again, this time giving us exaggerated, high-society "chau's" and air kisses.

Nahuel is on the move!

2007-11-26T22:47:00.000-03:00

A few days ago Nahuel made his first point in the world championship of chess for youth. It was nice to see him getting started after he had lost the two first rounds.

If you want to see how Nahuel is doing, check out the results.

To explain a little how to read the results:
The first number indicates the number of the round he is in. Then you can see the name of the other player, which country they are from and of course the ranking of the player after they have been playing 8 rounds.

The last number is whether or not Nahuel won the game against the player, which he has done 3 times. Plus the half point he got for playing a tie. So he is doing a nice job!
As you see he has won the latest match, so I am sure he is going to do a good job in the 10th round, which was played today (by the time of posting this story the results were not out yet).

Besides he has still got two more rounds to go, so I am sure we haven’t seen the last of him yet.

I also received an e-mail from Nahuel’s father, Ivan. He wrote that Nahuel was having a really nice time in Turkey, and that he was enjoying the time in Kemer. Ivan also told me that they went on a boat trip this weekend with some friends from Peru, Ecuador and Argentina that Nahuel has made.

That's all for now, but I am looking forward to tell you more about how Nahuel is doing and hopefully so are you.

Also we are still 600USD short in paying all the expences, so if you want to help us out, send me an e-mail!

All the stories about Nahuel are available here.

Learning the Shakira moves

2007-11-21T14:13:00.000-03:00

It seems sadly ironic to ask a handful of Europeans and Americans to teach Argentine children to dance. We are, after all, not particularly known for our sense of rhythm or amazing dance movies, reports our volunteer Jenn who is participating in dance classes inside Ciudad Oculta.

Luckily for us, the kids at Maria Rosa don´t seem to mind. They even limit their giggling when we start to move, which I find very kind of them. Marjon leads the class in a warm-up, which involves exercises like marching in place, boxing the air and sweeping our arms down to our toes.

The kids, even the smallest ones, follow suit, the air peppered with our Spanish instructions: "Izquierda! Derecha!" There are about a dozen kids at Maria Rosa for the class, from toddlers to teenagers, and at the beginning at least, all seem enthusiastic to follow our every move.

Marjon, who has worked with the dance class before, has brought along CDs with the Electric Slide and several other dances with instructions in English ("Great!" I think, "We´re practically incorporating an English lesson in with our dance class!") We hop, we slide, we criss-cross our feet. The kids seem fairly well-versed in the moves and are enjoying themselves, giggling and glancing side-ways at us to make sure they´re doing it correctly.

They grow even more excited when Marjon allows them to put on one of their own CDs, an Argentine pop song of which they know every single word. They launch into a complicated dance routine, which involves a lot of shimmying and hip-swiveling. We watch, awed, and then try to mirror their moves.

The older girls are keen to instruct us, patiently pairing up with one of us to show us the routine´s moves. We try to copy them, and I think we do an OK job, although the lesson pretty much ends in a collapse of laughter on both ends. They continue with the dance, and we just move side to side, clapping and smiling, while the little ones quickly grow impatient and ask to be picked up and swung around by the arms (a favorite game, I come to learn).

I can´t wait to return next week to continue my Shakira-like moves.

Help Nahuel!

2007-11-21T14:08:00.000-03:00

Conviven’s very own chess genius Nahuel Rojas (10) is now in Turkey, competing on World Youth Chess Championships. We are all crossing our fingers for him and are very excited how he will do.

Although we managed to find funds to send him to Turkey, we are still a little short in money! Conviven borrowed some funds to pay for Nahuel’s accommodation, but that money needs to be paid back.

So if you are able to make a donation, please send money for Nahuel to HelpArgentina, with a clarification that the money is for Nahuel. We need to make 600 more euros (890 USD) to pay back the loan we took to get Nahuel playing. Any amount helps!

You can also just make your donation directly, by contacting Benjamin (boenne@hotmail.com).

We did it!

2007-11-15T23:03:00.000-03:00

As far as I know Nahuel flew out for Rome last night and he should be getting on a plane to Istanbul just in a few hours. We still do not have all the money we need, but at least we did not have to pay for the flight from Buenos Aires to Rome.

This all was possible because of Laura, Benjamin, Valmir and all the people that donated money for the cause. Thank you all so much!

Longer and more detailed report is coming up in a few days. Please keep your fingers crossed for little Nahuel!

For those who do not know: Nahuel is a 10 year old boy who comes to learn English at Conviven and is a chess genius who had the opportunity to compete on the World Championships in Turkey. During the last month we have been trying to find money to get him there. Links are also coming up in a few days as I am writing this post from a hostel far away from Buenos Aires.

Conviven clean-up

2007-11-13T23:34:00.000-03:00

Just last week our volunteers gathered at Conviven to clean up the centre and reorganise some things. In other words we had a massive spring clean and now we have a new cupboard to use for all the teaching materials and whatever stuff we need.

The most enthusiastic ones of us started at 11am and kept going until the evening, others joined up when they could. We had a houseful of people wearing yellow rubber gloves, scrubbing the walls, floors, windows and cupboards.

As a result our working space looks a little better now and even the mould from kindergarten room came off the walls.

Despite all the people we had in the house, we still need to have a massive kitchen clean-up and a lot of walls need to be repainted. So if you want to come and help us paint, leave a comment!

A fun day in the park

2007-11-08T10:29:00.000-03:00

Last Saturday our volunteers took the kids who come to learn English at Conviven to a park to get out of the serious teaching environment to have some fun. Our volunteer Fiona shares how it went.

When I read the e-mail asking for volunteers to take the children to the park I thought ‘That will be fun!’ After some initial problems we were on the bus to Parque Sarmiento with 30 children and 9 volunteers.

We had an elaborate timetable of games like a wheelbarrow race, an egg and spoon race, a relay race, a 3 legged race and rounders. We also had coloured ribbon to tie around the children’s wrists to determine what colour team they were in and prizes for the winning team.

We arrived at the park and it was fantastic. Lots of green areas, football pitches, tennis courts and of course, two huge play parks. Immediately, we had a group of children wanting to go to the play park so some of us took them to the smaller of the two and some volunteers stayed and began a game of football with the others.

At the play park, I became aware of this amazing ability children have: to enjoy going down the same slide the twentieth time as much as they did the first time! We spent a good deal of time in the play park before we returned to where the others were and had a pretty unsuccessful egg and spoon race- they all cheated.

One little boy found a cracked egg in the box and asked if he could eat it- since they were all hard boiled I said yes. The next thing I knew all the kids were walking around eating hard boiled eggs when we had a huge bag of sandwiches, fruit and biscuits. Some of them even came up and asked for salt.

The elaborate plan never really took place but at 5pm we were rounding up 30 happy and tired children. They had spent most of the day playing football, running round and playing in the park. Personally, if I get the chance I would definitely do it again. If only to limit the time playing in the park and use up the ribbon and the hard boiled eggs for their initial purpose! The picnic in the park did not exactly go to plan but that didn’t matter because the most important thing worked – the children had fun.

Our second theatre class in the neighbourhood

2007-11-06T15:56:00.001-03:00

It was a nice and sunny Friday afternoon. Five volunteers from Conviven entered the villa at 2pm, accompanied by a helper.

It is a ten minutes walk until the little community hall in which we hold our class. On the way I see pools of dirty water and open garbage bags on the dusty road, as well as handfuls of children wandering about, or playing with the town's many stray dogs. In front of our classroom door there are some children playing with mud and pieces of bricks and other construction materials.

Minutes after we announce the beginning of the class, children come bustling in. We all stand hand in hand and form a big circle, encouraging everyone to join. They are mostly young boys and girls.

Some of the girls carry their toddler siblings in their arms. Our circle is so big that it almost spills outside of the classroom. An excellent start! As a warm-up before the class, we introduced our names and named a country we would like to visit the most.

When our volunteers expressed their wish to visit more exotic places like Tibet and China, our students shared a good round of laugh. Most of them would rather visit the United States.

Our volunteers split the class into two groups according to the age. Benjamin and Maria were in charge of the toddlers and young children under 10 years old. Janna and Eugenie took the older group.

We began the class with the “name game”. The game is designed to make the students, as well as us teachers, to introduce and familiarise ourselves with each other, as we constantly have different faces each week. It is also a fast-paced and energetic game that helps our children shake off their initial shyness.

As the children’s sounds grew gradually louder, eventually to excited screams, it was finally time for us to begin with our second game, “Luz rojo”. It is a classic kid’s game. We volunteers typically act as umpires, picking out those who don’t manage to completely “freeze” and driving them back to the starting spot.

The finale of the class was an exhilarating game of tag. Everybody big and little ran and chased each other in the open space outside the classroom. Here is our volunteer Benjamin, just having been tagged by those two little ruthless star players.

Our objective was to take a step toward establishing a regular theatre class within the villa for children. In this second class we learnt more about our new and existing students, the environment of teaching and the neighbourhood.

We discovered that the ages of our students vary greatly and that most of them are not used to a form of discipline and supervision. We also discovered that they are all full of healthy energy and curiosity, and that there exists a great bond among the children toward one another.

It will be a long, challenging journey until we get to see our students on stage, in the premiere of their first theatre work - but we have no doubt it will be one filled with excitements and new discoveries. At least, no matter what, everyone will get to have fun.

(Thanks to our volunteer Nicole for her photos.)

Class B improvements in English

2007-11-03T21:09:00.000-03:00

With the arrival of several more volunteers at Conviven over the past month, we have been able to split Class B into 2 smaller groups. This has allowed us to give the children more individual attention, focusing on their specific needs, shares our volunteer Laura.

We quickly discovered that Class B are english experts when it comes to numbers, colours, clothing and the human body, so over the past few weeks we have introduced several new subjects.

Incorporating the verbs "to be" and "to have" we have worked on a range of topics from general greetings, personal information and the family tree, to "free time", "the classroom" and animals. We help the kids learn using pictures, worksheets and games, where hangman seems to be a particular favourite.

The kids fill in a "today board" on the wall each class that summarises the day, the month, the weather and the time via pictures and cards. This gives them an opportunity to practise these topics in an interactive way.

We had a special class for Halloween where not only did the kids learn the english words for bat, witch and pumpkin, but the kids taught the teachers the spanish words too!

Successful fundraising

2007-10-31T01:59:00.000-03:00

Last Friday, the 26^th of October, we had a party to fundraise for the central heating system. About 150 people showed up and all together we raised about 2300 pesos.

The outcome was great for Conviven, but we are still a few thousand pesos short, so if you want to help installing the central heating system before next winter, write to Madi (madi.lang at gmail dot com).

Conviven volunteers conquering the villa

2007-10-31T01:48:00.001-03:00

Las week we started new classes in the villa – art, dance and theatre. All of them were very popular and we met a lot of new, happy and joyful kids.

Our volunteer Benjamin from Denmark shares his experience with the first theatre class:
“We decided to start with a lot of games so that we could get to know the children and that they could get to know us. Of course at first we played a little name-game, where everybody sits in a circle and one stands in the middle.
When the first name is shouted, the person in the middle has to touch the one who’s name was shouted, before he or she says another name, because then the one in the middle has to touch the person who’s name was shouted next.
After getting to know each other we played a whole bunch of other games, their favourite appeared to be a more theatre related activity where everybody had to act out different things.
We’re all looking forward to next class!"

Next week we'll also start teaching English in the villa on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 14.00-15.30. If you are interested in joining as a teacher, leave a comment or write to Liis (kangsepp at gmail dot com)!

Chess genius needs help

2007-10-23T00:35:00.000-03:00

In September we were happy to announce that 10 year old Nahuel is going to

Turkey

to compete in an international chess championship. Now it has turned out that Nahuel has the opportunity to go, but his family cannot afford it.

We are running short in time – Nahuel has to leave to Turkey in less than a month, but we are trying to get some funds together to help him get there. So if you are interested in helping Nahuel, please write ASAP to our volunteer Laura (laurajudith31 @ hotmail.com) who is in charge for this project.

Usually so happy and bright Nahuel has been really sad lately and we suspect it might have something to do with the fact he cannot go to Turkey. He has been playing chess for five years now and is currently studying privately with a chess master. Let’s help him to be happy again!

Short overview of our everyday life

2007-10-17T22:41:00.000-03:00

There is a lot going on at Conviven right now. I think the place has never ever seen so many volunteers at the same time – our team has 25 members right now and next week we’ll get two more people. You think it’s too much? Well, might seem that way, but since there is a lot to do, I am sure we are able to find something to do for everybody.

Next week we’ll start classes in the villa – three times a week kids can come to learn art and participate in different workshops, such as theatre, dancing or music. Hopefully we can soon have classes every day soon.

Our most advanced students – Group C – have a new activity where they write letters to their pen-pals every week. If you are interested in becoming a pay-pal, contact Lizzie (lizziemoran1 at yahoo dot com).

The theatre workshop we started a few weeks ago is getting popular, as last week the teachers had more than 10 students attending.

Next week, on the 26^th of October we’ll have a party to fundraise more money for the central heating system. If you are interested in attending, leave a comment and I can share more information.

Become a pen-pal!

2007-10-16T01:47:00.000-03:00

In order to encourage the kids to write more in English we are about to start organising pen-pals (via the net) for each student in the Advanced afternoon English classes.

Valmir suggested it would be great if our previous volunteers would agree to be the kids' pen-pal. Essentially this would involve sending a short email to your student each week focussing on a particular topic e.g. your family/hobbies etc in line with what they had learned in class that week. If you are interested, please get in contact with our volunteer Lizzie (lizziemoran1 at yahoo dot com) as soon as possible!

Conviven volunteers helping hungry children

2007-10-08T11:06:00.000-03:00

This weekend, on Saturday 6^th of October, four of our volunteers helped to collect food for those Argentineans that do not have a lot to eat.

Banco de Alimentos had volunteers all over Argentina, handing out flayers and asking people in the supermarkets to donate some of the food the bought for poor children.

Our volunteers Fiona from England, Lizzie from Australia, Benjamin from Denmark and Liis from Estonia were working for three hours in a supermarket called Carrefour, introducing Banco de Alimentos to people and collecting food.

Music festival on this Saturday

2007-10-04T10:44:00.000-03:00

Festival: LA MÚSICA NO SE OCULTA

18.08.07 – 12:00 Hs.

La Rosa 6300 (Ciudad Oculta)

Colectivos: 5, 50, 80, 97, 103, 117, 141, 180

Con: Santo Infierno, La Gloriosa, El Brujo, G.C.K.Kriu/Wutan Catan, Discípulos de Nadie, La Culta, Clan Oculto

Free entrance, festival only takes place when it is not raining.

Pictures from the last event are available here.

Barbara: The eagerness of kids was marvellous

2007-09-28T21:53:00.000-03:00

Even before I arrived in Argentina for a Spanish course, I knew I wanted to do some type of volunteer work. As luck would have it, I was placed in a group Spanish class with Helen, who was volunteering at Conviven at the time. Her funny stories about the children drew me to want to go see what it was all about even more.

I ended up volunteering at Conviven, three times a week for four weeks. I had never taught English in my life, let alone taught anything, not to mention in Spanish. It was a huge ego-booster that I proved myself I could do this, but really the most rewarding thing were the kids who came in each day, after their regular school hours, to learn English, on their own will.

Mataderos, the neighbourhood Conviven resides in, is anything but reflective of the stunning, full-of-life Buenos Aires we all come to see in Argentina. Be that as it may, it’s a reality that these children are born into, and to see their eagerness to better themselves at ages as young as five years old is simply “maravilloso,” as the Argentines would say.

Sergio and Evelyn, brother and sister, stick in my mind. Ages ten and six, they were probably the most serious children I had ever met! Showing the enthusiasm and willingness to learn English instead of playing with their friends, showed me that the children wanted to improve their future, learn more, and take themselves somewhere in life, outside of Mataderos, outside of Buenos Aires, and maybe even Argentina.

Barbara from the US worked with us in July 2007 for a month.

New courses at Conviven

2007-09-13T11:50:00.000-03:00

As the weather has turned a little warmer here in Buenos Aires, Conviven also has some news. First of all we have a lot of new volunteers willing to make the centre a better place for the children.

Also we have some new courses. This week Jaime-Jin from the States and Ida from Norway started an art class that takes place every Monday at 14.00. The first class was not that popular, but hopefully the word spreads all over Ciudad Oculta.

Next week Jana and Michael from Germany and Benjamin from Denmark will give their first class of theatre for 6-14 years old children. The theatre class is scheduled to Wednesdays, also starting at 14.00.

Past few days have been rather silent in the sense of students – when it rains not so many kids show up to Conviven.

Conviven student to compete in Turkey

2007-09-01T21:57:00.000-03:00

The silence has been long, but we have good news – one of our students, ten year old Nahuel Rojas will travel to Turkey this November to compete in an International Chess Championship.

Nahuel has been playing chess since the age of five, and he currently studies privately with a chess master. He recently demonstrated his impressive skills at Conviven, where Nahuel is enrolled in the Teach English programme. One of our English teachers unwisely decided to challenge Nahuel to a game. Despite his superior age, Profe Zach lost to the ten year old Nahuel in less than thirty minutes.

Nahuel’s older sister, Noelia, is also an avid chess player. Like Nahuel, the eleven year old Noelia studies privately and competes regularly in tournaments. Noelia joins her brother in English classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Good luck to Conviven’s chess champs!

Zach: There is no other place like Conviven

2007-09-01T21:39:00.000-03:00

“Conviven is a special place.” I was told this upon my arrival there, and I wondered it meant. Of course I already know it is special, I thought to myself.

When I began teaching at the center, I was encouraged to develop my own curriculum by using the ever-growing supply of books and teaching materials available at Conviven. Though daunting at first, I soon embraced the challenge and quickly took to the task of discovering my students’ abilities, interests, and goals.

This information allowed me to customize the curriculum for each of my classes. For example, one of my classes included a family that specifically wanted to improve their English pronunciation. I asked them to bring an English book of their choice to class everyday from which we would read aloud. Their improvement after only a few days astonished me. Within weeks, they were reading more fluidly and confidently.

In another class, I discovered that two of my students were fervent chess players, so I decided to devote an entire lesson to the game. We learned the names of the pieces, discussed the rules, and reviewed basic strategies – all in English, of course. The freedom to form curricula according to the specific needs of my students made my job more interesting and ultimately enhanced their enthusiasm towards learning English.

Conviven’s flexibility extends beyond the English program as volunteers are urged to share their own passions with students and explore possibilities for new classes at the center. I was involved in the formation of a weekly art class to provide artistically-inclined students an encouraging environment for creative expression. During my time at Conviven, classes were offered in such subjects as math, circus, and singing. Whatever your passion or area of expertise, you can teach a class on it at Conviven.

The classes I taught brought me face-to-face with the daily challenges of teaching. I had to constantly think of new, fun ways to present vocabulary and grammar to my students. Simple games and creative activities were great ways to cover the material and keep my students’ attention.

Many of them loved to color, so when we learned the English words for rooms of a house and the basic objects in each room, I had my students draw and label their own houses. They had so much fun coloring I don’t think they realized they were learning English while doing it! I learned quickly that I couldn’t educate if I didn’t captivate, so I became accustomed to constantly trying to devise innovative means to introduce topics. If I was ever out of ideas, we could always play “Hangman.” It never ceased to enliven my students and motivate them to study vocabulary.

There are many opportunities to teach English throughout Buenos Aires, but none are like Conviven. The freedom to shape my own curriculum and the freedom to begin new classes was both liberating and challenging. It meant that I had to constantly be on the ball and stay organized.

The students seem to sense how much thought and effort each volunteer contributes to Conviven, and they respond with a positive attitude towards learning, enthusiasm for the English language, and respect and admiration for their teachers. Students like these are a joy to teach, and I’m grateful for Conviven and all those involved with the organization for helping me be a part of something truly special.

Zach from the States worked at Conviven for two months from June to August 2007.

Changes in Teach English Programme

2007-08-24T14:46:00.000-03:00

This week we reorganized a little the Teach English Programme since lately the participants in classrooms have been on such different levels that it has brought difficulties for both teachers and students.

Kate from the States, Josh from Canada and me created a test to find out how much children know about English. Some of the children who have been attending classes more or less regularly during the past months did unfortunately not know much about English. At the same time some of them knew a lot. Zaira even got 50 points out of 60.

As a conclusion we now have three groups A, B and C that are more or less at the same level. Group A is for beginners and most kids in that class are very young. Group C has the highest level and I am hoping to take some of them even out of that group since they are that advanced.

Also next weeks seem promising in sense of new volunteers, we have some 5-6 people coming in more or less at the same time and some of them are coming for at least a few months.

We are still looking for people who could teach math, help children with their homework (maybe even start a class to help them learn to read), organise our library etc. Read more about opportunities of doing voluntary work in Buenos Aires with us.

Pictures from Conviven Rock

2007-08-21T23:07:00.000-03:00

With a little delay – here are some pictures from Saturday when Conviven’s bands La Culta and Clan Oculto gave with other bands live concerts in the gate of Ciudad Oculta.

The crowd of villa people was happy and so were the volunteers of Conviven who came to enjoy some live music, hamburgers and company of local people.

Updates

2007-08-17T19:16:00.000-03:00

I have updated the post "What could you do at Conviven?" with more options for volunteering in Buenos Aires.
The list of course is not complete, but I will keep updating it. Hopefully soon I am able to add more specific job descriptions.

And a reminder -- Conviven's band is playing tomorrow!

Come and hear Conviven's band!

2007-08-13T15:56:00.000-03:00

This Saturday there's a music event taking place in Ciudad Oculta and you're all invited. Take some time off, come and have a party with us! And also don't hesitate to inform your friends!

Si perdiste el primer festival...

si perdiste la muestra de fotografía de PH15…

el momento que estabas esperando ha llegado!

LA MÚSICA NO SE OCULTA

18.08.07 – 12:00 Hs.

La Rosa 6300 (Ciudad Oculta)

Colectivos: 5, 50, 80, 97, 103, 117, 141, 180

Con: Santo Infierno, La Gloriosa, El Brujo, G.C.K.Kriu/Wutan Catan, Discípulos de Nadie, La Culta, Clan Oculto

Entrada gratis – solo se suspende por lluvia

Sue: It's rewarding to see progress

2007-08-13T15:46:00.000-03:00

As volunteers, we play an important role to help support the work of Conviven, be it for just a week or much longer. Any skills are put to good use be it, sport, creative work, teaching English, music etc. And the children and adults who attend the centre are full of enthusiasm to learn. It is particularly rewarding to see the children make some progress and to be able to build a relationship with them to engender in them some self belief and self worth.

The existence of Conviven for the populace of this area is a Godsend, and, Valmir, the organiser and director of the school is worthy of several medals for all the work and effort he has put into making Conviven a success. He is aided and abetted by local people from the area who work unfalteringly to maintain the centre. His "Aide in Chief" is an incredibly hard working lady called Carmen who seems to do everything for everybody and always with a huge smile on her face!

I hope that my four weeks at Conviven helped to encourage and boost the confidence of two individuals with whom I worked three times a week to teach English and that through other volunteers they continue to try to strive to learn and have fun doing so.

Long live Conviven!

Sue worked for Conviven in July 2007, teaching English. Both of her students still come to learn English three times a week.

Rachel: It's a place for cultural interaction

2007-08-13T15:19:00.000-03:00

For about four months I worked as an English teacher in Centro Conviven. I may have taught my students how to form basic sentences and write some words in English, but the real lessons go much deeper – for the teachers as much as for the students. Conviven is not just a school; it is a place where people with few resources can receive some warm attention and care in a safe environment. As a part of the English teaching program at Conviven, I fell in love with the energy, the people, and the ideology of the place.

When I first came to Conviven in February of 2007, the volunteer teaching program was completely unorganized in regards to the materials and how to go about teaching English. We had to develop our own curriculum based on the few books we had and from our various previous experiences teaching or tutoring.

Together, we sat down to talk about it, and we used various books and our creativity to come up with a basic plan for teaching English to the children and adults at Conviven. We decided to separate the students by level and age. Now there are about thirty schoolchildren and twelve teenagers and adults who come three times a week to study English.

Working at Conviven is challenging, and each volunteer has a specific hurdle to jump over. For me, one of the hardest things was working together with a group of volunteers that was constantly changing as new people came and old ones left. Communication wasn't always clear or consistent, and leadership came and went. I had to learn to be less self-centred when I made a decision that affected the group, like not coming to work one day if I was sick or busy.

Why do we decide to dedicate our time and energy to teaching at Conviven? Well, each person has his own motive. For me, it's a question of providing some balance in a Latin American country that suffers from the common problem of social inequality. While some people in Buenos Aires have the opportunity to study English – a valuable skill that will help them in life and in their careers - others in neighbourhoods like Mataderos, where Conviven is, don't have the opportunity. Their public schools have less resources and less educated teachers, and at home they aren't always encouraged to study.

Another reason for volunteering at Conviven is that it is an interactive experience with people from other cultures and different lifestyles. The teachers learn from the students as much as they teach them. We help the students develop their self-esteem and language abilities, and the teachers have an experience that opens their eyes to the realities of the developing world. Conviven is a place where we "Convivir;" which translates to say that we live together despite our differences - instead of living apart.

Helen: Working there was rewarding

2007-08-09T20:30:00.000-03:00

I only volunteered in Conviven for a couple of weeks, but it is a couple of weeks I will never forget. The first thing you are struck with, as a new volunteer, is the total madness of Conviven.

The centre is full of the energy of all the children who attend the classes and the building becomes alive as a result. The children are obviously impoverished and denied the everyday opportunities you and I take for granted. This is why volunteers are so important. Every new volunteer has a skill they can share, along with input from the outside world and different cultures.

The fact that Conviven’s structure only exists in a loose sense, means that there is a lot of scope for initiative. The classes are not limited to English classes, if a volunteer has a skill they feel comfortable teaching then Conviven can facilitate this.

It is hard work at times, but it is also incredibly rewarding. When you witness the fruits of your labour, you start to realise how worthwhile it is to donate your time and help raise funds for the centre. The staff there has an unfaltering dedication which you can’t help but be in awe of. The centre has so much more potential, and I have no doubt, that with the help of other volunteers and more inventive fundraising, it will achieve this in the not so distance future.

Helen from Ireland worked with us in June 2007.

Lets' go public!

2007-08-06T12:16:00.000-03:00

I’ve been building this site for some time now and I feel it’s time to let everyone see it. There are still some pictures missing and a lot of our former volunteers haven’t sent me their stories, but I hope those things will be improving soon.

If you see any language errors in this page, I apologize – English is not my first language as you might know. Nevertheless, please inform me if you see any so that I could correct them (kangsepp at gmail dot com). Also if you have ideas how to improve this site, don't hesitate to tell me!

Hopefully this site starts to live an active life, letting you know what is happening in Conviven.

Ella: I touched their lives

2007-08-05T00:12:00.000-03:00

During March and April 2007 we had Ella from Australia working in our group. This is how she feels about her time at Conviven:

Working at Centro Conviven was a hugely fulfilling experience. The relationships I built with my pupils, and with the team of volunteers was something unique; like being part of a family. It is not often that you find a diverse group of people determined to fight against the odds to achieve a common goal. I was lucky to be part of this team, and even if only for six weeks, those weeks have been etched into my memory forever!

Greeting you at the door is Carmen; she is a grandmother from the villa oscura, and also the founder of Centro Conviven.

Like a true matriarch, she was always concerned for us, accompanying volunteers to and from the bus stops, providing students with afternoon snacks, making Conviven a truly warm and welcoming centre to visit.

Upstairs sits Valmir, always
laughing and sipping mate as he
welcomes the students to their afternoon English classes. He is incredibly dedicated to his role as leader of this centre, and is a great anchor for the students, who can always rely on him, no matter which volunteers may be coming or going at the time.

During my time volunteering, I saw perhaps forty infants, teenagers and adults walk through the doors for English lessons alone. To be honest, I arrived having no idea how I would be helping and what to expect from the children - nor did I speak much Spanish! All the volunteers met in the preliminary weeks to share what they knew, and together we established our own method of teaching Engllish and running the classes, developing a system that supported all of our strengths and nurtured those of our growing number of students. Before long, at least twenty five students were coming regularly and were assigned to specific teachers and classes, depending on their level and age.

Having gone through this program I feel that the impact was so much greater than I expected… I thought I had come to do my small part in giving support to children in need, while on my travels. In fact what I got out of it was the chance to really touch the individual lives of my students and the community, and for them to touch mine. It felt satisfying to be part of the process, strengthening Conviven through our team of volunteers, in a way that will hopefully continue through the years. Although I was the teacher, I also had the unexpected chance to learn a great deal from my pupils; from their way of life and all that they had been through. I saw a thirst for life and learning that I would never had imagined!

It is clear that this NGO provides a much-needed safe haven from the streets and las villas of Mataderos and Lugano. In a country with so much turbulence, Conviven provides an accepting environment for people of all ages, races and capacities.

Through this experience an awareness was born in me… I began understanding on a personal, social and political level what I saw – the plight of the Argentines and of those behind them, the hidden people of the villas...not to be forgotten.

Jenny: Incredible things happen at Conviven

2007-07-30T00:44:00.000-03:00

Our former volunteer Jenny has said this about Conviven:
Conviven is so much more than some classes or a set schedule – it serves the community as a comfortable, safe place that fosters new opportunities and support for those who walk in its door. I loved my time there and can honestly say I truly believe it is a needed, essential part of the community it serves. There are always multiple workshops being offered to the people of the community (besides, English classes, Conviven had dance classes, photography classes, health educational classes, etc. during my time there).

This array of opportunity and creative energy that is fostered at Conviven allows volunteers to truly be creative and to offer other classes they might feel compelled to start. If someone wanted to start a new class or workshop, the opportunity was always there. The staff at Conviven and the community were always welcome to new ideas and opportunities, which is very encouraging for volunteers who are seeking to be useful in new and innovative ways.

I showed up at Conviven everyday, simply ready to help where help was needed. I worked with children who were thirteen and in charge of multiple younger siblings, children who were not sure where their fathers were, children who lived in houses with over 20 people living with them, children who go to school for only 5 hours a day and are in classes with 40+ other students, children who were intelligent and hardworking but lacked the opportunities to realize their potential.

But Conviven opens a possibility where this potential can be addressed, where they have the opportunity to receive real attention and care from the volunteers. As a volunteer, I was able to really connect with some of the students and talk to them about how special they were, how much I believed in them and how I truly believed they could do great things in their lives. It was amazing how well they responded to my encouragement and how they thrived from someone providing personal, sincere attention to their capabilities.

There are incredible things happening at Conviven, and I know I am blessed to have taken part in its work and mission. I hope my meager words have provided encouragement to anyone who is considering working through the many volunteer programs Insight Argentina has available. If anyone would like more information on my experience with Insight Argentina, Conviven, or simply living in Buenos Aires, please feel free to contact me at jenny.r.hernandez at gmail dot com.

Jenny worked at Conviven through February 2007-June 2007 as an English teacher, giving lessons three days a week, three hours each day to children between the ages of 5-12.

Heath: I contributed to creating social change

2007-07-30T00:31:00.000-03:00

Our volunteer Heath from The United States has said this about Conviven:
Teaching English at Centro Conviven was truly one of the most rewarding experiences I have had. The staffs of both Help Argentina and Centro Conviven are second to none and, as a result, the volunteers are rewarded by being able to witness the center strengthen and grow during their time in Mataderos.

In addition, they give the volunteers genuine responsibility and the freedom to implement their own suggestions, which allows them, the volunteers, to effectively respond to the needs of the children on a daily basis. Lastly, working at the center is a great way to practice Spanish and get a glimpse of a different side of Buenos Aires. Overall, I had an unforgettable experience volunteering at Centro Conviven and honestly feel that I, personally, contributed to creating significant social change in Buenos Aires while developing lasting relationships.

Madi: At Conviven you can build a real relationship

2007-07-30T00:28:00.000-03:00

Our volunteer Madi Lang has said this about Conviven:
I started volunteering at Conviven 3 months ago and planned to come about 3 days a week. After the first few weeks I started coming 5 or 6 days a week because it is such a great experience. My castellano has improved vastly and I thank everyone who works at Conviven for being my personal tutors. Even though I didn´t really want to teach English here, now I love it and I find it helps me with my castellano language acquisition.

My favorite things about Conviven are the location, buena onda, group lunches, mate charlas, and the international vibe that comes from all our great volunteers.

At Conviven each volunteer is free to teach whatever class they like based on what their personal talents and interests are. Here you can build real relationships, have real learning experiences, and be part of a family.