"With CWY, you spend six months in a group of 18 young volunteers (half Canadians, half exchange participants): three months in a small Canadian community and three months overseas. At the beginning of the program, you are paired with your "counterpart," a fellow participant from the exchange country, with whom you get to live with for the whole program in a Canadian host family and a host family in the other country.

In each phase, you are assigned to a work placement to do volunteer work (...). Here are examples of what was available in Sudbury, Ontario, when I was there: daycare center, senior residence, AIDS center, Habitat for Humanity, Science North (an interactive science center/museum), international students' office at Laurentian University. I was working with the Junction Creek Stewardship Committee, a small environmental group created a few years ago to help restore a creek in the city that also does high school outreach. I had the chance to do a very challenging and motivating placement, and I grew a lot through my work with them.

In Kenya, our host community was called Kimende, a small village about 50 minutes away from Nairobi. We all worked with a small community-based organization called KENVO (http://www.kenvokenya.com/). Most of us were working in tree nurseries, planting grass or putting up fences. Although this work sometimes lacked challenges for me, the cultural experience was truly amazing: getting to learn a different language, staying with a host family for three months, and getting to know them just as if they were your real family... There aren't many Canadian volunteering organizations that offer such an opportunity for almost free (all you have to do to participate in Canada World Youth is to fundraise $2500).

Moreover, the organization has a very good reputation: they know how to handle the programs as they've been on the scene for about 35 years now. About 1000 Canadians participate every year, with 30 different exchange countries."

"...Thanks to CWY, I'm much more confident. ...My time in Canada made me realize that I am just as good as the next person, ...that I shouldn't feel inferior-and nor should my people. Many of us are under the impression that coming from a developing country makes us inferior to people from developed countries. I have come to understand that this way of thinking closes many doors. I feel fortunate to have been born in a Third World country, in Latin America. It has given me the chance to learn to deal with what we refer to as 'reality' on a daily basis, for I am surrounded by poverty. I have also come to realize that many different factors have contributed to the present state of my country. And it is this present state that I would like to somehow play a role in changing.

CWY gave me the chance to work with a variety of organizations, to see that the help we need so badly here does exist, and to realize that we can create a social system similar to the one that Canada has.

I think we are all capable of doing great things. We just have to want to, and we have to believe in ourselves.

These realizations have helped me to reorient my studies and to become the person I am today. My family and friends say that I have grown a great deal, and they applaud me for putting such conviction and passion into my ideals."

"In Guatemala, we did volunteer work for the Y'abal project. The goal of this initiative was to help farmers whose coastal homes were destroyed in 2005 by Hurricane Stan to rebuild their mountain village. Two years after this natural catastrophe, the 43 families had new homes. This was a great example of the famous quote by anthropologist Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."