Volunteering project undeterred by malaria symptoms
Everybody has a favourite part to their resume, the part that when potential employers as you about it in an interview you can talk all day about. You don’t have to think for a while and come up with some example that you memorised the night before. Granted most people’s are different to mine and don’t involve malaria symptoms but it’s good to be different right?
When I engage with people about my resume and get to this part it is not any past jobs relevant to the role or sales targets that I had met which I thrive on discussing but was in fact hands on experience that I had not even been paid for. This was when I co-ordinated a team of volunteers in Gambia to help build a well and water system for a small village. There are many stories to tell about this such as how half of the group had to receive treatment of Malaria yet we still finished ahead of schedule. Not only that but despite blistering heat that was often deemed unsafe to work in we always had a group of enthusiastic locals who were willing to graft day and night and at the end were eternally grateful for out contribution, a very touching factor.
It was one of those experiences that makes you the person that you are and opens your eyes to a lot of things you take for granted at home and I always get a positive response in interviews when I explain this part of my resume and to be honest so I think I should. I helped generations of people in a foreign country live a more comfortable life and whilst doing it survived the treatment of Malaria, a disease which kills millions each year.