Lessons beyond the classroom: a volunteer’s experience in Timor Leste

The approaching Jubilee of the World of Volunteers (8–9 March) has turned my mind to the most powerful experience of my life—okay, second most powerful after motherhood.

Exactly one year ago, I was spending every morning, Monday to Saturday, standing in front of huge classes of young adults in Timor-Leste trying to teach them English.

I had volunteered through the Cagliero Project, an agency affiliated with the Salesians of Don Bosco in Australia. They send people of all ages and backgrounds to Samoa, Cambodia and Mongolia, as well as Timor-Leste, to volunteer in Salesian-run communities.

Salesian missions operate in more than 130 countries, running schools, hospitals and orphanages. The congregation is devoted to the education of the least privileged youth through ‘reason, religion and amiability’, and with a focus on practical outcomes.

I’ll admit my motive for volunteering was purely selfish—I’d always wanted to go to Timor. I did try to counter this egocentric desire with the thought that I would be using my long service leave, earned over 20 years, to do something useful instead of sitting in a resort in Bali.

If our volunteers provide genuine and quality presence, then we consider their experience successful.

Most people who volunteer with the Salesians through the Cagliero Project, says director Lauren Hichaaba, have an intrinsic desire for justice and equality for those who are vulnerable and disadvantaged.

‘Sometimes this desire … is expressed in line with their religious beliefs, and for others this is just something that is within them that they do not attribute to any formalised religion,’ Lauren says.

While acknowledging that individual volunteers have slightly different aspirations, Lauren says a common thread is a motivation ‘to learn about and journey with people that they perceive to be different than themselves’.

Even a year later, I still don’t know how useful I was. Teaching is hard! As I was gently reminded by friends and acquaintances who are professional teachers, it’s a vocation. And it’s a vocation that takes, at minimum, a three-year bachelor’s degree and practical internships to qualify for.

What was I—with no background whatsoever in education—doing there?

Lauren says the ‘job description’ for a volunteer stint is secondary to being present.

‘This was the fundamental component of the spirituality and pedagogy of Don Bosco, founder of the Salesians,’ Lauren says. ‘Therefore, if our volunteers provide genuine and quality presence, particularly with the young people in their care, then we consider their experience successful.’

The mistakes I made as a teacher were legion. But I was present.

My school was a technical school catering to young adults aged 18 to around 34, offering training in several trades, including automotive, electrical, plumbing and administration.

I had classes of aspiring mechanics and administrators, with more than 45 students in each.

For a completely different experience, I also took on a class of nine young men who discerning a call to the priesthood.

Each group needed English for specific and different reasons, and while many had some knowledge of the language, most were at a very basic level.

I started out with unrealistic expectations of how easy it would be to impart knowledge of my native tongue, but it became obvious that standing at the front of the class lecturing them on prepositions and auxiliary verbs was not working.

The Salesian brothers who ran the school left it up to me and the other volunteer English language teacher—a brilliant American computer wiz, in Timor as a lay missionary—to decide how to proceed.

So I settled into a routine of giving my classes role plays tailored to their areas of specialty: auto shop scenarios for the mechanics, a day in the office for the administration students, biblical parables to act out for those training for the priesthood.

I felt this was the best way I could help them get speaking skills in English, and frankly, it was much more fun than grammar.

But as the brothers also wanted quantifiable results through regular testing of the technical school students, I had to persist with the grammar and vocabulary lessons, flailing about with different approaches.

We are on a mission to love young people.

Did I leave them better off? I honestly don’t know the answer to that. The love I developed for them has not waned, and I have stayed in touch with dozens of them though social media. I still try to help­ in concrete ways­—proof-reading CVs, filling in visa application forms—but I am not sure that is enough.

Lauren Hichaaba says volunteering must be considered through a critical lens, suggesting that volunteers should ‘acknowledge that not everything about volunteering is always positive’.

‘Yes, we are on a mission to bring education and development, but we are on a mission to love young people. If they approach the experience with a humble and open heart, then I do believe our volunteers leave those they encounter better off.

‘As Don Bosco said, “It is enough for me that you are young for me to love you.”’