In this blog, we hear from Isha, who studied Economic History with Economics and graduated in the class of 2023. She was also an Student Volunteer Ambassador. Upon graduating, Isha has embarked upon two major volunteering trips in Fiji and Brazil where she spent a month in each place volunteering within the local communities. In this blog, she provides intimate insight into what it was like to volunteer with Think Pacific in Fiji!
In August 2023, I embarked upon my first volunteering abroad trip to Fiji with the charity ‘Think Pacific.’ This charity offer an array of different projects in Fijian villages and more recently, offer opportunities in Bali where you live and volunteer within a rural village community. I volunteered for the ‘Youth Empowerment’ programme and lived with a host family in a remote Fijian village for just over 3 weeks.
This project was comprised of 20 volunteers who I spent 3 days getting to know prior to entering the village. We spent a lot of this time learning about Fijian village customs to make sure that we respected deep-rooted village traditions. I was grateful for the time to get to know the other volunteers before starting our project but I was even more grateful for the time to adjust as Fiji is 11 hours ahead of the UK!
Arriving in the village was a surreal feeling, I experienced the most heartfelt welcome and the villagers commemorated our arrival with a traditional Fijian ceremony called Sevusevu. All the volunteers sat in the village hall and we anxiously waited to meet our host families for the following 3 weeks. My family consisted of 8 people (4 of whom were children) and we all lived in the same room with only a curtain divider to separate the room. We were all partnered with another volunteer to live with and ironically my partner was also called Isha.
My first week in the village was difficult. I was exhausted everyday adjusting to the lifestyle, I felt lonely and in all honesty, I was dreading having to spend a further 2 weeks there. Fijians live a very communal life where the notion of privacy does not exist, so I did not get any time to myself which was the biggest adjustment I had to make. The children in my host family would even attempt to climb over the toilet door when I was using it! However, after the first week, I felt a lot more settled in the village and I had come to appreciate the beauty in their way of life rather than negatively comparing it to my home lifestyle. The second week flew by and it suddenly dawned on me that I only had a week left in the village- something I initially thought I’d be relieved about but was actually sad about.
The volunteering itself was delivered in the form of daily workshops to Fijian youth on the 6 topics of: Business and Enterprise, Mental Health, Public Health, Leadership, Sports Development and Climate and Environment. The workshops were very interactive using tools such as role play, games and presentations to engage everyone. In the afternoons we participated in a Fijian culture course where the Fijian youth taught us so much about their culture from farming to crafts to rafting and Meke dance. We even had the opportunity to perform a Meke dance routine near the end of our stay. A highlight for me was the raft race, the villagers helped us assemble 2 rafts (bili bili in Fijian) out of bamboo and we split into teams and raced down the river as a relay race while the whole village was running alongside cheering us on.
At the weekends we usually spent our Saturdays doing an activity with the villagers and then on Sundays we would attend church as it was an integral part of Fijian village life. Sundays were mostly spent with the family and there was a huge emphasis on resting up for the week ahead. The final weekend in the village was spent hosting a family fun day, a whole village dinner, swimming in the river and a sports day.
The day we had to leave the village, we had stayed up the whole night in the village hall singing and dancing with everyone and enjoying each other’s company for one last time and right up until our coach departed we were serenaded by all the villagers. It was the most special goodbye for the most special trip.
If you are an LSE student that has questions about this experience or are interested in volunteering overseas, please email volunteer@lse.ac.uk to be put into contact with Isha!
If Isha has inspired you to volunteer, check out one of our other ongoing opportunities or book a one-to-one with David Coles, the Volunteer Centre Manager if you have more questions. And why not follow us on Twitter, and Instagram to stay up-to-date with our events and opportunities and read our blog for more volunteering tips and stories.
