Risk Report: Colombia 1.Risk Report Results 2.Legal Matters 3.Survival Guide 4.The Special Case of Children 5.Your OWN Project These slides have been compiled by Borderless World Volunteers and are not copyrighted. However, if you would like to use them, please let us know by sending us an to

Risk Report Results

At this time, the region of Santa Marta is considered to be SAFE. 3 different embassies have labelled this region as GREEN. The project in Colombia will be in the suburbs of Santa Marta. Transportation every morning and evening will be needed. This being said, all the volunteers will need exercise a VERY HIGH level of PRECAUTION.

Legal Matters IT NEEDS TO BE UNDERSTAND BY ALL VOLUNTEERS THAT BORDERLESS WORLD VOLUNTEERS AND THE BORDERLESS WORLD VOLUNTEERS EXECUTIVE TEAM IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE VOLUNTEERS’ DECISIONS TO GO TO COLUMBIA OR FOR ANY ACCIDENT THAT MIGHT OCCUR WHILE WORKING WITH SOLICOLQUE.

Legal Matters All volunteers will have to sign a legal paper before leaving that will release Borderless World Volunteers from all responsibilities. It needs to be crystal clear that if something happens to the volunteers during their time abroad, the whole of the responsibilities will be either on the volunteers’ families or on the volunteers themselves. All volunteers should register with their respective governments before going

Survival Guide: When you are going to arrive on foreign sole, it is going to be exciting and at the same time scary. This 10 step-Survival Guide will help you to go through the first weeks which are the hardest.

1. TAKE YOUR TIME & STAY CALM When you arrive at the airport, you will be surprised by the number of people there. Do not stress. Take your time to asses the situation and figure out what you have to do. This advice will also be useful for the rest of your journey. When confronted with a problem, take time to see what you can do and what is the best way to handle it in the context of the local populations.

2. BE AWARE OF YOUR SURROUNDING In developing countries, local populations are always active. Sometimes you will be in situations where you have to move quickly and with the « flow ». Always be aware of your surrounding and always be careful when you are travelling. The weekends are the most dangerous as you are going to travel around your volunteering centre and you are going to see unfamiliar things. It is important for your safety and for the safety of the other volunteers that you know what is going on around you in order to be prepared if a situation becomes dangerous.

3. HAVE A CELLPHONE We went over the importance of good communication within a group of volunteers during the last workshop. Communication is crucial in order to have good group cohesion. Volunteers are not going to be together all the time. When you are going to lead projects at different places, it is important that you have a way to contact each others. Furthermore, it is crucial to have a cell phone if you get lost.

4. LIST OF NUMBERS You might not always be around the other volunteers and you also might get lost. It is CRUCIAL for you to have a small piece of paper with the number of the French/Canadian/American embassy and the number of the nearer consulate. Furthermore, it is also important to have the number of the people you work with (NGOs, Other volunteers).

5. ADOPT THE PASSPORT ATTITUDE It is possible for you to get arrested by the police during a road check, and therefore it is important that you always carry your passport around. A passport with the VISA inside will prove that you are allowed to be in the country. You have to be very careful not to lose your passport but you also always need to carry it around. If your passport is missing, you can call the embassy and go and get another one within 24 hours.

6. FOOD: The food in developing countries is not the same that is in Canada or Western nations. It is important that you eat food that will not make you sick. We will go over what to eat during the fourth workshop later in March

7. MALARIA & VACCINES: Most developing countries are infested by Malaria which is transferred by mosquitos. You need to understand that once you have malaria, you have it for the rest of your life. No treatment exist that might cure it. You will have to go to a « travel doctor » before going abroad in order to receive the necessary vaccines and order pills of « malarone ».

8. KEEP IN TOUCH WITH BORDERLESS WORLD VOLUNTEERS It is mandatory that you call an exec of BWV (to be determined) at least once a week in order to check with us and give us your first impressions and difficulties. We will go over that point during the last workshop in April.

9. BE YOURSELF BUT « BUILD A WALL »: In these kind of humanitarian projects, it is important to be yourself. People will want to connect with you and in order to do so you will have to be yourself. However, you need to realize that this experience will change you. You are going to see things that will not be easy and you will need to accept them without being able to intervene. You will have to build a wall between your emotions and your actions. If you let your emotions take the best of you, then you will not be able to work properly or efficiently.

10. MISCELLANEOUS PROTECT YOURSELF: You might be attracted by the « tropical » vibes of a man or woman there. If you want to have sex, protect yourself as the HIV/AIDS rate is high in these countries. Furthermore, you might get other diseases if you do not protect yourself. Once again: You need to be very careful when you go outside of your « perimeter of security ». Be very careful with your actions with the local community as their practices and culture surrounding sexuality might be quite different than your own

THE CASE OF CHILDREN: It is important that you do not connect too much with the children present over there. It is also important that you do not make them promises you will not be able to keep. It is really hard to understand why, but if you do connect too much with a child, you are going to hurt him/her. Ex: Fabien A child will feel that you are his/her bigger sister/brother and he/she is going to give you all his/her love and trust. In 6 weeks, you are going to construct a relationship that will be destroyed when you will leave him/her. THIS POINT IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL! YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT YOU GO THERE TO HELP THEM AND NOT TO HURT THEM!

YOUR OWN PROJECTS: As you will soon know who is going to leave, where, and for how long, it is crucial that you start thinking about what projects you could implement. The 10 steps slideshow from the last workshops is available on BWV Website under « Workshops ». In the next workshops, we will go over what projects you can do and you will have to do a 2 min-presentation about the projects you want to conduct there.