Last week, our volunteers finally arrived! We were so happy, shouting and waving AMIGOS flags to welcome them in the airport. They were a bit embarrassed by us, but we just could not hold our emotions knowing that our volunteers had finally arrived.

We all spent a lovely evening at our hostel in Panama City, where we had a delicious dinner and a nice shower.

The next day everyone woke up early, packed and got ready to head to our amazing briefing site located in Santa Clara.

Once in Santa Clara, the briefing activities started. We shared nice moments and activities including lots of dinamicas, leadership workshops, important information related to health and safety, cultural sensitivity, and more. We had the pleasure to host two important guests. One was Guillermo Solis, an amazing Panamanian youth who has been involved with AMIGOS for a long time and gave our volunteers important tools and advice for them to be familiar with the Panamanian families and culture. We also had the presence of Taylor Lee, a Peace Corps volunteer who gave a wonderful presentation about cultural sensitivity.

After two days of hard work and fun, our volunteers started their journey to their lovely communities and families. All of our team was really happy to see how confident and joyful they were to finally start this adventure. For staff members, it’s so inspiring to see the excitement and hard work of these young leaders. We believe that being next to them, hearing their thoughts and concerns, seeing their thoughtfulness and witnessing their joy is what makes our job so valuable and inspires us so much.