How many times does the average young person hear this phrase before landing their first steady gig?  Well, if you’re anything like me then you heard it A LOT!  And it’s frustrating…with a capital EFF!  

Map of Namibia

Thus, the chicken and egg predicament: I needed work experience to get a job, but how was I supposed to get work experience without a job?  Enter volunteerism… 

After a few months of job hunting I was getting frustrated.  A friend of mine sent me a link about an interesting internship program that Commonwealth Games Canada was launching, the Canadian Sport Leadership Corps (http://www.commonwealthgames.ca/ids).  They were taking applications for 17 internships within the Caribbean and Africa so I decided to throw my hat in the ring.  I figured, what did I have to lose and maybe I could gain the ever elusive experience that I needed to land a job.  

Well, I got one.  

Aerial of Swakopmund, in the middle of the Namib Desert.

  

*Keep in mind this was pre-2006 when Angelina Jolie made Namibia a household name by giving birth to Shiloh Jolie-Pitt in the coastal town of Swakopmund, Namibia. http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20061158,00.html)    

So, for nine months I lived and volunteered in sub-Saharan Africa and boy did I gain “experience”!  Actually, I gained many of the most memorable experiences of my life: work-related and otherwise.  Some things I learned through my volunteer position, in no particular order: 


  • There are many parallels to be drawn between poverty-stricken, third world shanty towns and inner-cities in Canada.

    Special Olympics Namibia athlete