Sunday, July 22, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Volunteer
All the volunteers from the Building Bridges Coaliton Event on Sunday spelt out the word volunteer!!!
I am the bottom part of the first E - red top, black trousers!!!
I am the bottom part of the first E - red top, black trousers!!!
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
One year Anniversary!
Well, Everything has been a bit crazy, I got back from the UK about a week ago and have not stopped since.
I can't believe it's been a year since I first came over. I literally flew back on the the exact same day that I first came over a year ago.
It was so nice to know that as I stepped off the plane I had a place to go to, a bank account to get some dollars out of, a US phone to let my US friends know I was back.
The past year as gone so quickly and I can't believe how well everything just dropped into place. Granted it took about 6 months to sort my visa out, 2 months to get my social security number. But I managed to find a pretty decent apartment with extremely cheap compared to the rest of Manhattan rent. I have got 2-in-1 new positions that are brand new so I can really shape it how want. I have fantastic friends over here who are always there for me. Life is good!
There is still much that I haven't done though and my new aim since coming back from the UK is to make the most of my time here - who knows where I will go next!
So getting back in the American way of life I went to my 1st baseball game. It was really good fun. We had nosebleed seats, in that we were about 15 rows from the highest point. We could practically see the writing on the planes that flew over. The atmposhere was sooo funny. It was the Mets( A NYC team) against the Reds (form Ohio). Any Reds in our section really got abused hurled at them - not very sportsman like at all!
On Sunday I made it out of the city to Philadelphia PA. It was the launch of the Building Bridges Coalition.
The Building Bridges Coalition, a project of the Brookings Institution’s Initiative on International Volunteering and Service, is a consortium of leading international volunteer organizations, universities and colleges, corporations, and government agencies working collaboratively to double the number of international volunteers serving abroad by 2010.
Check out the website at It was a really good afternoon. Extremely hot but it really reiterated why I am doing this job. The work that I do is about 90% a desk job so sometimes you lose site of why you are there.
We had a fantastic story of Adil our Morocco Country Director. One of the placements we have in Morocco is in a juvenile Detention centre. One of the inmates was involved in a Terrorist suicide bombing in Casablanca and his target was Americans. Most of our volunteers are Americans so this guy would not talk look or take part in any of the activities that the volunteers arranged. This guy hated Americans. Slowly he began taking part in English lessons, music lessons and began talking the volunteer. When the volunteer left, the guy - who previously tried to blow himself up because he hated Americans that much hugged him and said he would miss him! That is what we are about. CCS is about fostering cultural understanding and educating and empowering people to better their lives and situations. You often lose site of the fantastic work we do, the lives we change and it's always good to be reminded of this.
We do change lives, we change the lives of the communities we work with, we change the lives of our volunteers - even I am proof of that - I moved half way across the world to work for them. Even though CCS is doing so muc there is still so much more to do and that is why I was proud to be at the Launch of the Brookings Initiative, because of everyone makes the effort to volunteer domestically or internationally things can really happen.
Ther was an amazing speaker at the launch, His speech was fantastic. It was something about if you do things for yourself and selfishly, when you die, it all dies with you. But if you volunteer and help other people, when you die this lives on and is immortal. You shouldn't measure your life and success by the size of your paycheck but by the impact you have on other peoples lives.
So that's my sermon over!
I can't believe it's been a year since I first came over. I literally flew back on the the exact same day that I first came over a year ago.
It was so nice to know that as I stepped off the plane I had a place to go to, a bank account to get some dollars out of, a US phone to let my US friends know I was back.
The past year as gone so quickly and I can't believe how well everything just dropped into place. Granted it took about 6 months to sort my visa out, 2 months to get my social security number. But I managed to find a pretty decent apartment with extremely cheap compared to the rest of Manhattan rent. I have got 2-in-1 new positions that are brand new so I can really shape it how want. I have fantastic friends over here who are always there for me. Life is good!
There is still much that I haven't done though and my new aim since coming back from the UK is to make the most of my time here - who knows where I will go next!
So getting back in the American way of life I went to my 1st baseball game. It was really good fun. We had nosebleed seats, in that we were about 15 rows from the highest point. We could practically see the writing on the planes that flew over. The atmposhere was sooo funny. It was the Mets( A NYC team) against the Reds (form Ohio). Any Reds in our section really got abused hurled at them - not very sportsman like at all!
On Sunday I made it out of the city to Philadelphia PA. It was the launch of the Building Bridges Coalition.
The Building Bridges Coalition, a project of the Brookings Institution’s Initiative on International Volunteering and Service, is a consortium of leading international volunteer organizations, universities and colleges, corporations, and government agencies working collaboratively to double the number of international volunteers serving abroad by 2010.
Check out the website at It was a really good afternoon. Extremely hot but it really reiterated why I am doing this job. The work that I do is about 90% a desk job so sometimes you lose site of why you are there.
We had a fantastic story of Adil our Morocco Country Director. One of the placements we have in Morocco is in a juvenile Detention centre. One of the inmates was involved in a Terrorist suicide bombing in Casablanca and his target was Americans. Most of our volunteers are Americans so this guy would not talk look or take part in any of the activities that the volunteers arranged. This guy hated Americans. Slowly he began taking part in English lessons, music lessons and began talking the volunteer. When the volunteer left, the guy - who previously tried to blow himself up because he hated Americans that much hugged him and said he would miss him! That is what we are about. CCS is about fostering cultural understanding and educating and empowering people to better their lives and situations. You often lose site of the fantastic work we do, the lives we change and it's always good to be reminded of this.
We do change lives, we change the lives of the communities we work with, we change the lives of our volunteers - even I am proof of that - I moved half way across the world to work for them. Even though CCS is doing so muc there is still so much more to do and that is why I was proud to be at the Launch of the Brookings Initiative, because of everyone makes the effort to volunteer domestically or internationally things can really happen.
Ther was an amazing speaker at the launch, His speech was fantastic. It was something about if you do things for yourself and selfishly, when you die, it all dies with you. But if you volunteer and help other people, when you die this lives on and is immortal. You shouldn't measure your life and success by the size of your paycheck but by the impact you have on other peoples lives.
So that's my sermon over!
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