Why Long Way Home - Noémie Paslier

I was at a point where my life was not filling me with happiness. So, as every person would do, I looked for something new on the internet. I studied foreign languages and cultures so it was obvious for me to go abroad. As my Spanish needed to be improved more than my English, I decided to look at the geographical sphere of Latin America. There are many projects on this continent that really appealed to me. However, the Long Way Home project stood out from the rest. First of all, I liked the fact that this NGO is implanted in a rural area, which means that the volunteers/interns are immersed in the culture. Then, I love how they bring together the education and the green building parts. As a school intern, I worked three days a week in the school and two days on construction, which permitted me to see and understand the two main actions of Long Way Home in the Comalapan community. Finally, it was a perfect transition for me between what I studied last year and the studies I want to pursue next year.

I started a master's degree in French as a foreign language, aspiring to become a teacher of French for non-French speakers. But as it didn't really work out, I endeavour to study Environmental Humanities (a mixture of languages, arts and sciences around the theme of the environment) to work in environmental education. I had the opportunity to apply what I learned and to have a concrete application of what I will study in the future.