Building Together

The prep week was filled with hard work in preparation for our build-week. We helped to pour the cement pad and we also built the walls of the house up to the windows. It was a very humbling experience to be able to construct the house alongside the family we are building for. They were so eager to help and it was easy to tell that they were extremely excited and grateful for this house. This house is the first one LiveDifferent is building in Mexico that is built out of cement blocks. The houses LiveDifferent builds in Mexico are typically built out of wood but LiveDifferent has teamed up with a local cement company here to help to provide one of their workers with a house. The father of the family we’re building for is employed with this company so it’s pretty neat to see a community coming together to provide an honest, hardworking family with a home.

Building alongside and interacting with the family has been fun as well. They have 2 kids named Guillermo and Elizabeth. They are really cute and are always trying to help as much as they can. Whenever one of us needed a break from working we usually would go and colour with Elizabeth which was also really cool because its something that you can do with someone without having a language in common. Although most of our week was spent building the house, we still got the opportunity to go teach English and art classes at the Chula Vista Community center. I have been a part of teaching the English classes for the past 4 weeks and it is an awesome experience especially since I want to go to school to become a teacher. The children we teach are so excited to learn and are almost always engaged in what we are teaching them. Some days are better than others in terms of their attention spans but overall it is great. The reason why I really like the English classes is because it makes me feel like I’m actually making a difference; the kids are leaving afterwards hopefully knowing at least a bit more English and that’s super cool. I love the idea that I had a part in furthering their English as a second language while I am also learning Spanish from them.

Jadyn – Current 2016 Academy Student