The Countdown Begins...In almost 2 months I will be volunteering in Mozambique, Afica

My name is Rosetta Racco and I decided to volunteer overseas because I want to help people on a grass roots level.    I have been working with children with special needs and families living in disadvantages in Toronto, Canada for about 20 years.  I have worked with the medical model and the social model throughout hospitals; schools, childcare centre’s, communities and family drop in programs.  Working in this wonderful rich infrastructure country of Canada trying to help vulnerable groups has been very rewarding and challenging at the same time.  There is a major amount of policies, regulations and paperwork to deal with on many levels politically and socially.  I have worked with a variety of professionals and a diversity of cultures, languages and traditions.  I began writing an undergraduate thesis about the experiences of children with special needs and lone mothers living in low socio-economic status in a downtown rural area.  I realized then it has been my dream for a long while to take my studies, research and experiences further with working on an international level helping to decrease or eradicate poverty for children and families.  This is when I connected myself to learning about the work that CUSO International does and what a perfect match it was for me and the realizations of my journey in becoming a reality.  CUSO International has been around a long time and in my field of work it was a staple of helping people all over the world, it is as common as a household name.  Cuso International has just celebrated its 5o the year anniversary and it has placed 15,000 volunteers abroad in developing countries, including Canadians, Americans, and citizens of developing countries.

I will be placed with an organization called AEFUM promoting youth volunteering and active citizenship in Maputo, Mozambique.  The job title is Specialist Volunteer Programme Support.  One the projects that CUSO and AEFUM are working on together; the project is about integrating orphans and vulnerable children in school and supporting caregivers through training on psychosocial care.  Helping children and families in Africa has also been a dream of mine for a while.  Maputo City, Mozambique has a very interesting history and its roots lies within the Portuguese origin.  


I am brushing up on my Portuguese language, by taking courses in Toronto, Canada.  I have also made a great deal with a friend that I will teach her a 1-hour class of yoga and she will teach me a 1-hour class of Portuguese! 

Mozambique suffers from a lot of poverty and the whole of the infrastructure is need of a lot of help.  I am hoping that I will be able to provide people with as much facilitation as I can and to the best of my abilities, however I know that it is the people from Mozambique that will be teaching me new wonderful skills and life experiences.


I will be writing about my experiences in Mozambique and posting my pictures on this blog.  You can follow me here and comment as much as you like and I will try and keep up.


If you would like Cuso International to keep doing the wonderful work they are doing by helping to eradicate poverty on an International please do not hesitate to donate on my fundraising page.

http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=1330926&langPref=en-CA


Also, did you know? For every $1 donated, CIDA provides an additional $9. Therefore, a donation of $25 becomes $250; $50 becomes $500; $100 becomes $1,000; and so on. As a result, for every $2,500 donated to Cuso International, we can recruit, assess, train and place a volunteer for one year. 


My fundraising event is here...click here to learn more and RSVP
Your challenge is to invite 2 friends and pass this page on to 10 of your friends.