Interview With Neil, Former Katimavik Volunteer: Part 1

No Comments | June 12th, 2007 | Trackback

I had the chance to do an email interview with former Katimavik volunteer Neil (see the Volunteer Logue Profile of Katimavik here) and he was kind enough to answer all of my questions and also to share some photos from his Katimavik days. Find out why he did, what it was like – both the work and the living arrangements, and what advice he has for others considering it.

So why did he decide to do Katimavik?

“It was something I’d heard about and thought it sounded like fun, and a great way to get the government to pay for me to see the country. I mean, there was other stuff too - I needed to take a year off from school, wanted to try something different, maybe decide if my life was heading in the direction I wanted it to, and Katimavik seemed like a good opportunity for that.”

What kind of work did he do?

“I worked four different jobs over the course of the program (30 weeks when I was in it). In Owen Sound, Ontario, I split my time between doing office work for the Alzheimer’s Society - I developed a database system to manage their library - and the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority, where I did everything from helping survey and build a walking path, putting up educational trail signs, assembling picnic tables, copying maps, all the way to cleaning windows.

In St-Jean-Port-Joli, Quebec, I worked for a literacy organization, doing some program development work, assisting with classes (basically running the computer literacy classes, since that’s my specialty), and spending some one-on-one time with an older illiterate man, helping him learn to read and write, and do some basic math. I was better at the math, since teaching literacy in a second language is, uh, difficult…I was just as bad at verb conjugation as he was, so I always had to cheat and look it up.

Then in Vancouver, BC, I had an office job downtown for an adoption support group. Really interesting work, I was able to proofread books that were going to print, work a bit on their website, and perhaps do an excess of admin support work.

On top of that, every 5 weeks or so, my turn came up to be “house manager.” This would mean two of us would get the week off work to do all the cleaning, meal planning, and cooking. (Our group arranged it so that house managers didn’t always do dinner dishes, others arranged it differently). And then there’s 3 or 4 workshops each rotation, and also each member of the group is responsible to put together some programming based on the various things that Katimavik is supposed to teach.”

Read on to see what Neil’s experience with the Katimavik living arrangement – nine volunteers from all over the country sharing one house or large apartment (hmm…this is starting to sound Real World-esque!) – was like.