Dear readers,
It’s been a busy first two months of our Global Ambassadors Summer Exchange Program but we couldn’t be more excited to share a little bit more about the program with you.
Our summer program consists of small group workshops, one to one exchanges, and fundraising to support our Guate Groundswell program.
SMALL GROUP WORKSHOPS
These past few weeks, we’ve run our first small group workshops which consisted of 4-5 SOS volunteers meeting with 4-5 Guatemalan ambassadors over Zoom for a cultural exchange. The groups spent their time together playing games, sharing laughs, and building relationships.
Heidy teaches us about traditional clothing in Guatemala.
In one workshop, our SOS volunteers and Guatemalan ambassadors created a Team collage about their favourite foods. Our volunteers got to learn about some traditional foods in the community of San Felipe, including boxbol, chuchitos, and churrasco. Their collage certainly had us all feeling hungry!
Team Amigos Para Siempre’s Team Collage
The groups also collaborated to create team names. This was a great opportunity to find commonalities and represent our groups, as well as learn more about each other’s languages. In Group 3, Vilma suggested the name, “soñadores exitosos” to represent that everyone in their group is a dreamer of success.
ONE TO ONE
Our ambassadors are also exchanging one on one with a partner through Slack. Each partnership has their own channel which translates their messages automatically!
In our first week, we shared our favourite sports and activities with each other. Some partners shared videos of their favourite activities, while others sent pictures and messages.
Maria and I discovered we both have a love of reading and want to be teachers! She shared with me a favourite passage and we discussed our favourite spots to cuddle up with a book!
FUNDRAISING
We also kicked off our fundraising campaign this week with our Four Corners of the World dance workshops.
Participants learned a variety of dance techniques and styles including ballet, shuffle, Bollywood, and zumba, all led by four of our amazing volunteers. Nish, Evert, Sophie, and Allison had been planning the workshop for almost two months and their hard work sure did pay off.
We had a blast groovin’ and movin’ to the music, and I even picked up a few new moves to try on the dance floor! All together, the event raised a total of $155, all of which will go toward the youth ambassadors’ scholarships.
Sophie teaching us “Relever”
Alongside the dance workshop, our ambassadors have been planning a variety of fun events throughout the summer.
Our next fundraising event will be our Race to Guatemala: A week long event where we try to collectively get 5000km to represent the distance from SOS HQ to Guatemala! We know it’s going to be a great week with awards, prizes, and fitness fun!
For more information about Race to Guatemala, check out the event page here: https://app.simplyk.io/en/peer-to-peer/cdbf2b19-0fcc-4c82-8190-499701b43232
To see some of our other awesome events, check out the calendar below:
It’s been an eventful two months of our program filled with laughter, joy, and connection. We can’t wait to get back to our workshops next week to see what the groups come up with next!
Jensen