Campbellford – CDHS student Erica Edwards has been specially selected as one of 30 volunteers to represent Canada on Youth Challenge International’s Project Costa Rica.
Following extensive testing, Edwards was chosen from a large number of applicants from across the nation to help coordinate community-based projects throughout the Central American country.
In addition to helping people in that country, participants will have the opportunity to live and work with local community members as well as a group of international youth from Australia and Guyana.
Edwards said she has always enjoyed helping people less fortunate than herself and she would like someday to earn a living helping people overseas.Her school’s guidance councillor, who had done similar work himself, recommended her for the project.
The volunteers will be evaluated once they arrive in Costa Rica to see where they will best fit into projects on the go, and will be assigned the work they will do at that time.
Edwards said she would like to teach English to students there, but she could wind up creating national park trails through the rainforest, implementing programs geared towards youth skills development, women’s rights, or local ecotourism, or working on construction projects designed to meet basic community needs like access to clean drinking water.
Volunteers are required to pay their own expenses on the five-week venture. YCI does not provide funding for them.
Edwards is asking for financial help from the community. She needs $3,000 for her trip in July, but she and her sister Shannon will be paying for the additional expenses of clothing and airfare themselves.
Donations are tax deductible and can be made through the YCI website here.
To learn more about the work that YCI does with Canadian and global youth, visit www.yci.org.
