By Emily Untermeyer, President of AMIGOS

InterAction Monday Developments
August 2008

Since 1965, Amigos de las Américas (AMIGOS) has trained more than 20,000 young people from throughout the United States to take active leadership roles in community health and development. Through their experiences, volunteers gain close-up perspectives of international development and insights about working effectively in other cultures. Many participants go on to pursue academic studies and professional careers in international development.

Instead of working in large groups with other U.S. students, volunteers work for up to eight weeks in teams of two or three in more than 250 rural or semi-urban Latin American communities. Volunteers live with local families, working collaboratively with partner agencies, local youth and community leaders.

Youth participants are trained in a range of community development methodologies, such as asset-based community development and appreciative inquiry. Rather than focusing on what a community lacks, volunteers facilitate dialogue about community strengths and opportunities, thereby adding energy to a priority-setting process that is determined by the community and continues once the volunteers return home.

Year after year, hundreds of teenagers and young adults have transformative experiences through their participation in the program. For example, the 2007 Volunteer Experience Survey, which was conducted anonymously with 585 participants, found that:

• 87 percent of survey participants noted growth in their personal confidence and improved communication abilities;
• 91 percent reported improvement in their ability to plan, implement and evaluate projects; and
• 90 percent reported increased leadership skills.
  

Leadership Ladder

Instead of maintaining a full-time, year-round staff in each Latin American country, AMIGOS promotes stellar volunteers to serve as project managers (see sidebar). This model of project management, which AMIGOS has used for decades, empowers young adults to take on remarkable levels of responsibility. The team of well-trained project staff is tasked with the challenge of locating host communities for volunteers, defining and monitoring projects, updating health and safety protocols, managing a budget, and collaborating with partner agencies, government officials, and local community leaders.

Partner Organization Involvement

Youth engagement activities are conducted in partnership with organizations engaged year-round in local development efforts, such as fellow InterAction member Plan in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua and Paraguay. The partnership is a natural fit because both AMIGOS and Plan use training techniques that engage youth in dynamic learning and focus on use of multiple intelligences. For several years, Plan – Dominican Republic has supported the participation of local youth in AMIGOS’ projects in Central America.

“Youth leadership is a top priority for both AMIGOS and Plan,” said Virginia Saiz, a Participation Adviser with Plan – Dominican Republic. “We get young people leading real development processes, getting adults and authorities involved,” Saiz explained.

Extensive planning with the partner agencies and host communities helps determine what projects will be most appropriate and effective. Projects are community-centric, meaning that the host communities determine the specific work activities to be done. As such, community activities span a wide range: from building school kitchens, latrines and playgrounds, to teaching health education and creative expression classes for young children, to facilitating trash pickup programs with local youth.

Latin American Youth Engagement

AMIGOS volunteers are first and foremost community service partners and catalysts for positive civic engagement of local youth. There are three categories of local youth participation:

• Youth counterparts, who participate within their home community;
• National volunteers, who are partnered with an AMIGOS volunteer within another community in their home country; and
• International volunteers, who are partnered with an AMIGOS volunteer in another Latin American country.

The involvement of Latin American youth ensures project sustainability and provides an excellent forum for cultural exchange. “The cultural exchange is life-changing, but the most amazing aspect of the interaction is that AMIGOS volunteers are inspiring local youth to become agents of change,” said Kristin Kaper, AMIGOS Director of Latin American Programs. “The local youth often continue with projects long after volunteers have left.”

For over 40 years, AMIGOS has demonstrated that young people are capable of accomplishing almost any task laid out before them. They are flexible enough to face the challenges that inevitably arise in international development situations. They have the energy and idealism to take on big projects and to inspire others to actively and collaboratively engage in community development.

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