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OAK BAYNEWS Friday, January 24, 2014
www.vicnews.com
The Oak Bay News catches up with Jillian Westby, an Oak Bay teen who sees the world from a different point of view.
Jillian Westby spent six months volunteering with children in Quito, Ecuador. Now that she’s home she said she loved the experience and hopes to do it again. Arnold Lim/News staff
A long way from home Arnold Lim News staff
Nine months has passed and Jillian Westby is already planning to go back. The 19-year-old spent six months in Ecuador between October 2012 and April 2013 with a local, non-profit organization working with children at the ferias, or day markets. There, families are forced to bring their children, who work and wait in the streets until their parents long work days are complete. For six months, five days a week, she worked helping them learn and play. Not only did Westby ask to do this work, she paid money out of her own pocket to do it. The Oak Bay High graduate signed
made the decision to be a volunteer up with International Volunteer HQ instead of just a traveller.” (IVHQ), a company specializing in placing Westby paid approximately $1,500 to volunteers in developing countries for IVHQ, plus the cost of her travel experiences coined own airfare. She doesn’t “voluntourism,” a hybrid of “I wanted equate her experience with volunteering and tourism that tourism, in part because she has grown in popularity in to do something for such a long time, recent years as an alternative meaningful instead stayed lived with locals, ate with to the traditional vacation. While the actual definition of just traveling.” locals and even maintained a full-time job for six months. and merits of voluntourism - Jillian Westby By the end of her stay, have been debated, Westby she had learned a lot about loved her experience, the herself. She said she went into it knowing people she met and said she wouldn’t it would be challenging but fulfilling work, change it. acknowledging she did heavy research “I have always volunteered my entire beforehand to ensure she was in the right life. I wanted to do something meaningful place, doing the right thing, at the instead of just traveling,” she said. “I
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right time. It is a distinction Steve Tipman, president and CEO of Volunteer Canada, respects. “People just need to really do their homework and be aware, look at the difference they would make versus people in the local community that could be FINE doingCUSTOM the workJEWELLERS as well,” he said. “Individuals doing their homework is an important one. There are many Canadian organizations doing great work abroad, Canadians can become engaged. … There are benefits to international volunteering.”
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PlEASE SEE: Journey included life lessons, Page A4 FINE CUSTOM JEWELLERS
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