Megan Bose has always had a passion for helping others.
Throughout high school and post-secondary, she has been involved with many non-profits and charities, and has even spent much of the last year travelling across Canada on volunteer programs.
So for her, the latest opportunity is a dream come true.
The 20-year old Langley student has been accepted into Canada World Youth, a Canadian government volunteer exchange program, and will spend the next six months volunteering in Bolivia and Quebec. She is one of 18 selected, with nine from Canada and nine from Bolivia.
“I’m so excited and fortunate to be accepted. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” she said.
Founded in 1971, Canada World Youth is a non-profit organization dedicated to developing international educational programs for young people ages 15-29. Their two part programs give volunteers a chance to work in both developing and first world nations to learn and understand how different cultures work.
On June 24, Bose will take flight to Santa Cruz, Bolivia to live and work in the community for three months promoting prevention of violence against women. The group will then fly back to Canada to live in St. Jerome, Quebec to do similar volunteer work in places such as soup kitchens, women shelters and old age homes.
On weekends they are free to explore the area, but this is far from a holiday. Bose and the other participants will be hard at work with the Foundation for Sustainable Human Development creating their own programs for social progress. They will be staying with host families in average homes, and find out exactly what it is like to live in the poorest country in South America. “It’s not like we get to stay in mansions. We will be in small houses provided by host families,” she said.
One of the challenges, Bose will have to overcome is the language barrier. Speaking English and French only, she has to do the entire program in Bolivia in Spanish. Canada World Youth will provide language lessons for all of the participants, but learning a new language from scratch will be difficult.
“The people from Canada and Bolivia will have to room and work together so we will have to find a way to communicate,” said Bose. “Luckily we get Spanish lessons and the people from Bolivia get English and French lessons, but the first two months will be intense. Culture shock and language barrier. But we will make it through.”
Another major concern for Bose is her is her medical safety.
“Bolivia has one of the worst water systems in the world and we have been warned about things,” she said. “Any fruit we eat needs to be peeled, we can’t eat anything that has fallen on the ground and we can only drink water if it has been boiled or is bottled. It’s pretty intense.”
Her parents, too, are worried for her safety.
“I have mixed feelings about it,” said her mother Kim Bose. “She’s going into a really large city. She’s staying with a family that we don’t know much about. She doesn’t speak the language. There’s a lot of diseases, and I know she’s getting her shots. But she’s really excited to go, so we have to let her go. “
There’s only one more barrier Bose must overcome prior to leaving, and she needs help.
She has only a week left to raise $2,800 in donations for Canada World Youth before she can depart.
Normally participants have four months to raise the money, but Bose was a late substitution after another participant dropped out. She has only had four weeks notice.
“I’m super excited to go, but it’s stressing me out,” she said.
She has set up a PayPal account to collect donations. If you wish to help, visit http://meganbose.shawwebspace.ca/. Other donations are accepted through Coast Capital Savings. Contact Megan Bose at megan.bose@shaw.ca for more information. She says she would also love to speak with donors and is open to answering any questions.