CPP WELCOMES TWO NEW GERMAN VOLUNTEERS

Katrin Fisher and Anton Bogs are new members of the Casa Palabra y Pueblo team since September 1 of this year. Like other young people who have worked with us since 2006, as community reporters with Peródico ÍNTAG, the first project of what would eventually become the Casa Palabra y Pueblo, Katrin and Anton have demonstrated their full commitment to the mission and activities of the CPP. Below, a brief introduction to Anton and Katrin for our friends in Ecuador and abroad.

Katrin is 19 years old and is from Rheinbah, a town near the city of Cologne. She has two younger siblings and her mother is a social worker. Katrin is an artist who has already contributed with her skills in that field in her work with the kids who participate in the CPP’s Reading/Theater Circles. Her interests include the arts, math, and French. At the CPP, she works with the Circles, as mentioned, and also with the Ludoteca where kids come to watch movies and do activities related to the subjects presented; at the moment, they are working on mountains. She is also cataloguing materials for the Documentation Center the CPP is creating in order to provide a permanent archive, which will be open to residents, students, researchers, and journalists, and will include the books, videos, photos, audios, brochures, posters, flyers, documents, etc., that members of Intag’s organizations and its residents want to make available to the public. Katrin lives with the Zabala family in Apuela. She plays soccer, a sport she practiced in Germany and, now does so with the women’s soccer team of Apuela. In her free time, Katrin likes to watch volleyball games and read; her favorite genre is fantasy, especially the Harry Potter series and The Lord of the Rings. She has already visited a number of places in Ecuador, including Mindo, Atacames, Quito, and Ibarra, and in the coming weeks will be traveling to Cuenca.

Anton is 18 years old. He is from Radebeul, a town near Dresden. His academic preferences include math and physics. But like Karin, he isn´t sure yet what he wants to do with his life and so he signed up for the volunteer program sponsored by the German government. His responsibilities at the CPP include running the Infocentro (Internet center), where, in addition to assigning computers to customers and charging for services, he makes copies, scans documents, types letters and other documents for customers, helps students find information, and so on. In the next few days, he will begin working with the Life History Project. At first he will be correcting transcriptions of the interviews with persons whose life histories we are working on. Anton´s Spanish, which was a little weak when he arrived, has improved impressively during the few months he has been in Intag and our plan is that, early in the new year, he will be helping with the interview process with the people whose life histories we are working on. He lives with the Arias-Paguay family. He enjoys spending time with their 15-year-ol son whom he helps with his homework.

Both Anton and Katrin came to Intag through the Weltwärts program; Weltwärts means “going out into the world.” Their work with the CPP is guided, especially, by another volunteer, Amy Woodruff, who came to us through the Peace Corps, and who will be the subject of a near-future post. As mentioned, we began to receive Weltwärts volunteers in 2006. Our experience with them (most have been young women) has been spectacular. They have worked with our projects in a totally committed fashion and demonstrated the same commitment to Intag in general. And former volunteers remain committed through a foundation, Intag, e.V., some of the first volunteers created on returning to Germany. And so, we are deeply grateful to Weltwärts and to the German people for this valuable contribution.