Silya in Argentina

My story

!Hola! I’m Silya, I’m 19 and during my internship I was in the third year of my Sport Studies degree. Besides my studies I do slalom skiing and windsurfing. I work in a shop selling gear for all kinds of water sports and I’m a ski instructor. In short, my life has a lot to do with sport!

After the information day about the internship options, I knew straight away that I wanted to go abroad. I started searching in a database of all the known internships and found an internship with United Through Sport there. During the conversation with the boss in Holland, I was told that I could go to South Africa, but that more help was needed in Argentina.

After the spring half-term holiday, I left for Argentina together with a classmate. We both did the same internship with a different focus.

Throughout the internship it was my job to ‘manage’ the volunteers. This meant: providing breakfast, welcoming people, giving tours, coordinating them to their ‘workplaces’, etc.

In the first months of the internship I mainly assisted with PE lessons at state primary and secondary schools. As the teachers came to trust me, I was allowed to introduce games or explain exercises. It’s handy if you speak Spanish, because then you’re allowed and able to help with the PE lessons sooner.

Halfway through the internship I was given more tasks behind the scenes, once the organisation’s management trusted me and knew what they could expect from me. Examples of these tasks were: fetching supplies for projects, trying out new projects, creating documents, etc.

In the last few weeks I worked in a soup kitchen. The soup kitchen makes food for about 300 people, and when I had days off I often went to help in the kitchen there. Later a ‘childcare’ centre opened there for children who don’t go to school or couldn’t go home after school. During the winter holidays, English and sports lessons were given there. During this winter holiday it was my job to coordinate all the volunteers, and I was supervisor of the entire project.

Looking back on my internship in Argentina, I learnt an incredible amount.”

Looking back on my internship in Argentina, I learnt an incredible amount: dealing with the volunteers and the local people gave me insight into several cultures, I learnt Spanish, improved my English and saw how the health and sports sector works in another country.