Paula Aparicio, an occupational therapist at the San Juan Grande Hospital in Jerez, shares her experience after working at the San Juan de Dios Sanatorium in Havana between March and April of this year. Paula came through the Juan Ciudad NGO (NGO) international volunteer program, where she has participated on several occasions, also traveling to two other centers: in Sucre, Bolivia, in 2014, and Iquitos, Peru, in 2017.
By Paula Aparicio.
Few, if any, ways of traveling have more value and meaning for me than the one Juan Ciudad NGO promotes through its international volunteer program.
The immersion in psychiatric hospital life and the excellent community life with the Brothers of St. John of God in Havana demonstrated, from the outset, the incalculable wealth that comes from exchanging cultures, personalities, and experiences.
I'm an Occupational Therapist, so in a psychiatric setting, with people with a variety of mental illnesses, my volunteer work primarily consisted of supporting the development of various psychostimulation programs, therapies, and workshops. However, my favorite part was the more relaxed afternoons with the patients, spent outside of regular hours, amid chess games, books, and endless conversations.
On the other hand, the country's reality was palpable from the very beginning. Life in Cuba is contradictory, stimulating, dignified, and combative. A symbiosis of scarcity and the spirit of survival.
It is necessary to understand it closely, like so many other realities, and it is precisely this proximity, accompanied by sensitivity to the local context and a receptive attitude, that makes us aware of the need and possibility of contributing to positive social transformations.
That's why the effects of volunteering upon return are so significant, and where this experience can take on even more meaning.
