Spanish students and their free time activities

A volunteer work experience in Sant Roc, Badalona, Spain

My name is Clara and I’m seventeen. Every Friday afternoon, after school, I think: “Ok! Time to meet my friends and ... but I immediately think: "No, my kids in Sant Roc need me. I need to help them escape from their cruel reality: parents with drug addiction problems, pregnant sisters at only 15 years of age or simply no relatives at all near them because they all live abroad.

Once a week I got to a local community centre called “Ateneu de Sant Roc” in a poor neighbourhood in Badalona where local gypsies and immigrant children from different parts of the world, like Pakistan, Morocco, Romania, Africa, South America... go to have a shower (since in most of their homes they don’t have any running water), to learn Catalan (the language we speak in my region, Catalonia), or just to have a good time out of the street, where they spend most of time during the day. I work there as an instructor but I’m not being paid: I’m just a volunteer.

As soon as we arrive, all the kids are waiting for us: we can hear their voices shouting even from outside in the street: “They are here!” And few minutes later I have them all over me, hugging and kissing me... This feeling is incredible!

Just by looking at those poor and sad kids with an enormous smile on their face, I feel like no other. And the more I look at them, the more I want to work with them, the more activities I feel like preparing for them, the more meetings I want to go to...

Just like some other people, you might think that I’m wasting my time here. But I just love it! What’s more, not only am I involved in this, but I’m also a volunteer for different ONGs (like Red Cross, where I help poor people in my own town) or I even helped organising the Special Olympics in Barcelona. Doing all this I'm the happiest person in the world. Although I don’t have a lot of time, I think that helping other people is the most rewarding work you can do.

To sum up, since I do this type of volunteer work, I see the world from a different point of view. Just try it and you will see that the chances for changing such a terrible world we live in are in your hands: you will feel the happiness in your hands.