After my amazing experience [volunteering] in Peru and learning about the culture and language, I was inspired to add Spanish as a minor upon returning to school.
Lauren Miles, Volunteer in Peru
I want you to know that my time volunteering with CCS was one of the most enjoyable and memorable of my life. The staff in Ayacucho, the opportunities to help, learn and give were life changing. I have since become very active in trying to do something more in this world. Please see my website at www.200orphanagesworldwide.org. It was inspired, among other things, by my trip through CCS to Peru in January 2007. Thank you and I will do anything I can to enourage people to do a volunteer trip. It will change their life and the lives of the people they touch.
Jan Hanson, Volunteer in Peru
My three months in Brazil in 2006 have sculpted much of my life since then. I feel attached to the culture, the language, and the friends I made while I taught english with CCS. I still speak online with my students from Salvador, and it gives me great pride to know that I gave them the opportunity to speak English so that they too could have the opportunity to connect with people from other countries. It also gave me the motivation to learn Portuguese, so that I could stregnthen my own connection with Brazil. Therefore, after studying Portuguese at George Washington, I decided to study abroad in Salvador for six months in 2008. During that time I achieved fluency in Portuguese, reconnected with some of my old English students, and studied Latin American and African History at Universidade Catolica de Salvador.
Jack McAndrews, Volunteer in Brazil
My undergraduate degree from New York University is in Gender and Sexuality studies where I have studied in depth issues regarding educational and health disadvantages to women and children here and abroad. I have volunteered with CCS in four programs (India, Brazil, Peru, and Thailand). From my experiences with CCS and the Peace Corps, I have learned that international volunteering is vital to understanding other cultures and more importantly understanding my own.
Emily Heroy, Volunteer in Brazil, India, Peru, and Thailand
The biggest thing I know now is that I know I want to teach.
Madeline Dreyfus, Volunteer in South Africa
This experience was life changing and something that I will carry with my every day. It opened the door to public health and made me realize that I have so many options for my post-graduate studies. I was limiting myself.
Stephanie Wrona, Volunteer in Peru
You might recall that I participated in the Lima program in July 2003. I continue to think very fondly of my time there and have derived a great deal from that experience in shaping my professional and other volunteer interests. In fact, I recently travelled to Kenya with a fellow volunteer from my cohort with whom I’ve stayed in close contact over the years. She and I have been working with some Kenyan colleagues to put together an NGO project of our own helping to meet the educational needs of young people in an area called Gachoka.
Stephanie Peddicord, Volunteer in Peru
