Mon stage en Espagne

Buongiorno,
Il lavoro tutto bene e i miei colleghi sono gentilissimi e molto carini con me. Ci sono molti stagisti della mia età quindi ho fatto subito amicizia 🙂
Buona giornata

Martina Fontana

Testimonials au pair

Hi!

Wanted to say thank you so much for helping me!! I will definitely reccomending you to any of my friends that are interested. Both families were lovely and I had an amazing experience all summer! Can not thank you enough. Both families I will keep in contact with and have made great relationships with them.
Ciao!!!
Somer

Voluntourism opportunities

Language barriers can make any traveler feel out of place in a foreign country. Volunteering is one way to get the most out of learning the language of any country. In France, an organization called Cultural Homestay International has been helping travelers connect with host families for conversational exchange and cultural immersion. Check out the program below and remember to tune in to Peter Greenberg Worldwide this weekend for more information. Plus, don’t forget to check out our archive for all kinds of voluntourism opportunities.

Paris is a city vibrant with culture—and one you are definitely going to want to visit. But why only stay for a day or a week when you can really immerse yourself in the culture? Cultural Homestay International has been a non-profit organization since 1980 whose mission is to bring people closer together through interpersonal exchanges.

There are cultural opportunities all around the world for people interested in learning more about a particular culture through home-stay experiences.

This voluntourism opportunity requires a bit of a longer stay, but it’s worth it. Participants in France get a chance to live with a French family and teach them English, while also benefiting by learning French in exchange. English Conversation Volunteers (EVC) are expected to stay with the host family for approximately a month.

The program provides volunteers with room and board with a screened host family in exchange for 15 hours a week of English lessons to those in the program.

About 100 people are expected to participate this year. Applicants must be 18 years old to apply, and must be native English speakers. Fees for the ECVA program range from $699 to $1899 for a one to three month-long cultural immersion program.

My french au Pair at Vicenza

Hello Ines,

I just wanted to let you know that Margot returned home to France yesterday.  There were a lot of tears when we said goodbye at the airport and we are missing her terribly.  She is a very special young woman and I want to thank you for finding her for us.  Especially since it was on very short notice.  I could not have asked for a better au pair.

She became part of the family during the year she was with us and we hope to visit with her again in the future.

Thank you for all the help you have provided me and my family.

Warm Regards.

M. Lew

My fantastic tutor in Rome

The lessons of english were done via games with children they were not proper english lessons ! They used to read, play with the tutor and I will add it has been a wonderful experience having this tutor from N.Zealand in our house. Family Gabrielli

My fantastic experience in Rome as a tutor !

I’m more than happy to write about my experience here in Rome with the Gabrielli family.  Let’s hope this induces more applicants to apply to exchange English with the Gabrielli family.  My writing is as follows:

There’s a saying that time flies when you are having a great time!  In a flash, I’m going to conclude my time with the Gabrielli family in another week.  I have been doing conversational English program with French and Italian families for many years now.  For me, this is a better way of getting myself immersed into local cultures.  I came to Europe over a decade ago as a tourist and upon finishing my visit, I felt something’s missing.  Then, I returned to Europe again but this time as a backpacker.  Armed with Lonely Planet books and deluded with a sense of invincibility, I started to do the backpacking scene but after a while, I felt that something’s still missing inside.  Whilst it’s true to a certain degree that backpacking provides you with an opportunity to meet myriads of people from different countries and from different way-of-life, after a while, you would identify that there’s also a pattern associated with it: drinking, late night, irresponsible behaviours.  Then, I decided to volunteer myself to stay with local families for a while and I would like to see Europe from their perspectives.  With this particular type of travelling, my host family’s priority comes first.  My travel comes secondary.  If you were lucky enough to be placed with caring and emphatic host families, you would realise that the mutual respect attribute would benefit both parties.  By placing yourself with host families also meant that you are relinquishing control and that you are embracing the unknown.  For me, this provides me with an opportunity to learn to adapt to handle myself in trying circumstances.  Also, if you were being good listeners, you would get tips from host families to go places that are not even mentioned in Lonely Planet books.  There seems to be local scene versus the traveller’s scene, which I appreciate immensely.  Italy holds a special place in my heart for some inexplicable reasons.  Somehow, I find Italian’s appreciation of beauty, their grounded humility and sincerity, their total devotion to their family, their intuition with their food and drinks are simply admirable.  And Gabrielli family has given me all of that and more!  I think the most touching of all is that they give me this opportunity to come to grasp of what it meant to be Italians.  I also do find that after encounters with the families, there won’t ever be any clean break.  Somehow, we have grown attached to the families that we have spent time with. After this volunteering session is over, I would make my way to visit my two other host families in Italy and France, who I have also come to know as friends.  They even proclaimed me to be their brother from another mother!  This type of volunteering may not be suitable for everybody.  That being said, if you were genuinely curious and inquisitive, and that you want to give (rather than take), then, this program is definitely something that you should look at seriously.  I would like to think that once you give enough, the rewards would present themselves one way or the other.  I am utterly blessed to be a part of this scheme and I am immensely joyful to share my experience to the readers out there.  May I wish you find your own little Paradiso in Italia!  Arriverdichi from Ping of New Zealand (3rd December, 2013)

Aupairing in Rome !

Hi Ines,

My stay with the  family was absolutely amazing I couldn’t have wished for a better family.

Regarding the papers, I’m guessing you are meaning the visa documents. The process was quiet simple once you actually found the right people to talk to. But some other Australian au pairs I met in Rome had a lot of trouble with it.

Regards.

Lucy from Australia

Au pair testimonial – Australia

“Regarding Laura, I would like to express my deepest appreciation and satisfaction for a wonderful experience, perhaps the best au pair I ever had!

She is a lovely young lady, very polite, very very sweet, well mannered with an extraordinary upbringing and at the same time very friendly, warm and particularly patient with children.

She is quite capable of handling kids, of teaching english and helping with the homework as well as entertaining and listening to the child’s difficulties or problems as well as encouraging with his sport activities. My son was so disappointed when she left that he carried on crying for about a week and I am sure he will keep in touch with her for a long time.

She also was exceptional with the other members of my family, particularly with my mother. She was very helpful and loving with her and I will always be grateful to her for this.

I also had the pleasure to meet her family in Rome and welcome them in my home and of course I realized that a special girl like Laura could only have such a lovely family.

The only thing I regret is that she was my au pair for such a short time and I wish I could have enjoyed her presence for a full year at least!

I must confess that I went so far as to beg her to stay for next year with us, but I understand that she must continue her studies and life goes for everyone.

Best regards

Nadia

Conversation Corps in Italy

I would recommend anyone who is thirsty to travel to take advantage of GeoVisions program. I went through Conversation Corps to Italy and was placed with a family in central Italy. This family now considers me part of their family and I am already planning my next visit back to see them. I couldn’t have been paired with better people and have built strong relationships with my new Italian family. I got to travel to Tuscany and the Amalfi Coast with them and I went to Rome and Venice on my own. I wouldn’t have been able to afford all this travel if I was staying in hotels on my own the whole time. The best thing the program did for me was chosing such a loving family who really made my experience one of the best of my life. Katrina