Dia Duit!

Hi there,

My name is Rita and I come from Ireland.  I grew up in a small village called Cloughjordan in Co. Tipperary but I now live and work in Dublin. 

When I was growing up I wanted to be a teacher but somehow I ended up in the corporate world. However..... I soon discovered that teaching and training are part and parcel of every job so I have had lots of opportunities to put my training skills to the test -  IT systems training, presentations, and supporting new team members are just a few examples.

In my spare time I like to go to the cinema, reading - although lately it has been more “Hello” Magazines than a good novel or autobiography but must sort that out... I like to travel and I try to get to the gym two to three times a week to counteract my very sweet tooth!  I also like to get involved in volunteer work.  Past projects include, trekking in Peru to raise funds for Multiple Sclerosis, running a 10k mini marathon to raise funds for Diabetic Association and my favourite to date involved visiting six Nursing Homes in Dublin, with some colleagues, where we sat with the residents to collect their memories from which we created a keepsake booklet and then held a “Tea Party” where we presented them with two copies each for them to share with their family and friends.  It was a really great project where we learnt a lot from the senior members of our community while at the same time giving something back to them.

As I mentioned above I like to travel and have been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to visit many countries both with work and on personal time, but there is still a long list of places to visit that are on the “to do” list - so my 2014 New Years resolution was to combine travel with some volunteer work.  I did some research on the internet...how did we ever survive before the internet......and under www.volunteerabroad.ie I came across EIL Intercultural Learning, l liked what I saw on their website so I gave them a call for an informal chat.  Cliona, the Volunteer Abroad Co-ordination, who I spoke with could not have been more helpful and so I took the next step and formally applied for a 3-week placement.  After a 45 min interview I was delighted to be accepted to be a volunteer with EIL,  the next step was to find a suitable role.  When a 3-week placement teaching English to children in Thailand came up it really grabbed my attention and so Cliona sent my CV off to Wad Rattanakit at Cultural Canvas Team (CCT) who partner with EIL and share the same values.  After an anxious week of waiting to hear back, I got finally got confirmation that I had been accepted and I was on my way.... well nearly, there was still some paperwork to complete and a two day pre departure workshop to attend. 

The pre departure workshop was great and covered everything from fears and expectations, checklists on what to bring with you, the do’s and don’ts while on placement right through to bringing your experience back to Ireland.  They even arranged for us to meet with past volunteers so that we could hear first hand what challenges they faced and how they dealt with them.  The key takeaways for me were to be open minded, respectful of the in country culture and embrace the experience.

So on Saturday 16th August the months, weeks and days of planning were over as I boarded a flight form Dublin to Heathrow to catch a flight to Bangkok, from Bangkok I caught an internal flight up north and after 19 hours of travelling I arrived at Chiang Mai airport where Wad was waiting for me with a big smile and he was very welcoming which put me at was straight away.  He took me to the volunteer house that I will be sharing with seven other girls from different parts of the world.  I briefly met two of the girls before I crashed for the night - jet lag really hit me but after a good nights sleep and I was all set for my orientation with Wad.  I really found this orientation useful as it went a level deeper into the Thai culture, the day was closed with a 1:1 lesson on Thai language -not sure how much I have retained but will find out over the next few days as I try to put it into practice......

On Tuesday I went to WatMuenNyeun Gong school where I am assisting the English teacher with P5 (9 - 10) and P6 (11-12).  I was introduced as “Teacher Rita” and will be mainly helping out with pronunciation, reading and writing.

Well that's about it for now....tune in next week to hear about how the rest of my first week in Chiang Mai went.

Talk to you later

 Rita