Right now Sarah Bousfield is preparing to come back to the UK after three months away volunteering in Peru. I thought Sarah was a really interesting person to feature in this series as she has not only got stuck into life in South America but she previously lived and worked in Australia for five years and has also spent time in the Netherlands. I wanted to find out more about her volunteer work, life in Australia and what drew her back to sunny Preston.
Sarah Bousfield, 37, is due to fly home from Peru in a few days time, for the past three months she has been living and working in Huanchaco, volunteering with the Otra Cosa Network(OCN), a Non-Government Organisation.
I wondered why she wanted to get involved with the project.
“I wanted to feel like I had done something ‘meaningful and useful’, I have always worked in corporate business environments so as well as ‘giving something back’ I also wanted to have a break and see if the NGO industry was something that I might want to investigate working in further,” she says.
Eight years ago Sarah relocated her life to Australia, I asked her why?
HELP Women – a fantastic project teaching women social, health and business skills and helping them grow in confidence so that they can be independent.
All of the people from Preston I have interviewed so far in this series of articles have maintained that the biggest challenge is not seeing family and friends. What was the biggest challenge for Sarah whilst living in Australia?
So what was it like settling back into Preston?
Taking the kids for surfing lessons – even though they live near the ocean none of them ever go in the water and therefore can’t swim.
So has she any advice for someone seeking to relocate to Australia or volunteer abroad?
Click here to learn more about the work the Otra Cosa Network(OCN) does and how to volunteer/donate.
Find out more about the work the OCN volunteers have carried out on their blog.