On last June we received the American Lucynda Scheffer for our exchange program. The Global Affairs and Creative Writing student worked as an intern at ELO Apoio Social e Ambiental, an institution that creates opportunities to change teenagers’ lives through their preparation and placement for the workplace in the future. During her internship she taught English to teenagers and assisted classes at ELO.

We met Lucynda to know more about her time here in Brazil. Check it out:

Can you tell us about your experience in Brazil?

As a native English speaker, I taught English and I was an assistant for a lot of classes that required some knowledge of worldwide cultural aspects. For example, today we were doing a corruption workshop and we talked a lot about politics and international perception of Brazil, particularly because of the Olympics that are about to start.

I really liked the people in Brazil and I really liked the culture. Brazilian Experience has been super helpful. I had a small crisis with my medication and they were able to help me to get it at their office and I was able to pick it up which was very very helpful.

My host family has been wonderful! I love my work, as today is my last day, I’m kind of sad, everyone has been really wonderful. I have gotten lots of hugs today and three people offered me to stay at their houses so I don’t have to leave so yes, I loved here  and I am kind of sad that I have to leave, but I hope I can come back.

We also interviewed Cláudia Rodrigues Silva  and Sarita Menegusso  from ELO, to know how was the experience of receiving Lucynda at ELO and luckily we received a positive answers from them:

How was the experience of having Lucynda in the team?

Cláudia: It was a pleasure for us to have Lucynda in the team because she is a really delicate girl. When she first arrived here, she was a little bit shy, but after she started interacting with the appendices and the team, she developed herself into a more outgoing person. Nowadays, she is capable of communicating in Portuguese and she developed her work here in a very responsible way and we could see that she was willing to learn.  That being said, she not only taught the appendices, but also learned and brought a lot of happiness to ELO. We thank her for her collaboration and definitely ELO will always going to be here for her.

Sarita: I had the pleasure of living together with Lucynda because of where she was staying here in Curitiba and what really surprised me is that she is a very sweet and discrete girl. She would come to me and ask “Where will I be today?” and I would answer her saying “well, you can be with this person or this person” and then she would answer “ok okay, so I wanna be with this person because I like to work with her.” She had an autonomy while working with other young people which is something really nice. This was a very good experience, an amazing exchange with her and I just want to thank Lucynda and say that we will always going to be here for her and for the others exchange students that want to be part of our team.

Would you like to receive more international interns?

Yes, we enjoy receiving exchange students here. They are people that bring new cultures and new knowledge for the appendices . ELO is a place of multiculturalism. It is a place that is always open to receive new ideas and new people to modify and add new methodologies and partnerships.

You can check the interview in video here