Emma Somerville – Schools Assistant, Australia
"I was placed in Indigenous Australia. I was working in a full Indigenous boarding school in Townsville. My duties included doctors and hospital visits, helping with the running of the Health Centre, assisting teachers in class, helping out the houseparents in boarding and finally the best part of my placement, co-establishing and facilitating a Homework Program. The Head of Maths at the school and I set up a Numeracy Program which was run three evenings a week for all the boarders by the Lattitude volunteers. We had numeracy exercises (that two amazing lecturers from QUT who specialised in Indigenous numeracy created) on the computer which the students completed every week. The programs were culturally relevant as well as ability appropriate for our student’s numeracy levels. It was the most fulfilling part of my placement, seeing the student’s improvement in the quarter-year numeracy placement test that was the result of the program. As a result of its success I was requested to stay on as a tutor for a further six months and at the end of the year I wrote a report on the success of the Numeracy Program for inclusion in an application for a future government grant.
As a result of my gap year in Townsville, I returned and changed my major to Australia Indigenous studies. The experience has been amazing for me, because now when I learn things at University, I can often say I have had a personal experience of it, and thus it has been really beneficial for my studies. Furthermore, I know exactly what I want to do in the world and it is because of my experiences in my gap year. As I write this I am about to start an Internship for the Native Title Services Victoria which is the area I am at the moment most interested in working in. I would have not found something I am so interested and passionate about had it not been for my placement with Lattitude. Furthermore, I often go back and visit my various lifelong friends and adoptive family I have made from my placement and they continue to influence how I see the world, for the better, by making me grateful for all I have and what I am capable of doing if I believe in myself and work hard.
I often have people tell me they are considering doing a volunteer placement somewhere because they say they have seen how much it has changed me and taught me so many life lessons, which they too would like to experience. I think something like what Lattitude Global Volunteering provides is amazing and priceless and every young person should do it at least once in their life!"