7 books for your solidarity trip: don't leave without them!
They will accompany you on sleepless nights. The train hours will make you more enjoyable. And, above all, they will take you to see the country you are visiting before leaving. Books are useful in any adventure, but on a solidarity trip they are ESSENTIAL. We recommend 6 readings to get the most out of your volunteering in Southern Countries.
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Volunteers carrying out activities with boys and girls in Bali. |
1) A solidarity trip: the adventure of two aid workers in America
Author: Herminia Esteban.
Interesting for… reflect on international cooperation.
Herminia Esteban Morales has been an international aid worker in several Central American countries. In this book share the day to day in places that, being rich, are impoverished and where its people, sometimes due to natural phenomena and other times due to the social injustice that surrounds them, need outside help. Their deficiencies, however, have not made them lose their sympathy and hospitality.
Volunteers collaborating with Tibetan refugees in India. |
2) The mountains of Buddha
Author: Javier Moro.
Interesting for… Get to know the Tibetan culture up close. We recommend that you read it before collaborating with Tibetan refugees in projects India o Nepal.
Historical novel that catches In it we know the essence of Tibetan culture, its history and its resistance through two young women joining a group of refugees to cross, at night and on foot, the highest peaks in the world. Its pages breathe strength, dignity and, above all, hope.
Volunteers in one of the projects in Kenya. |
3) The innocent anthropologist
Interesting for… entering an African country for the first time. Essential if you are going to collaborate in the Orphanage and School of Nairobi or at the Center for Girls in Ngong Hills.
funny book that makes you reflect, with a burst of laughter, on the culture shock and the consequences that field work in countries of the South can cause. Nigel Barley spent a couple of years in the study of a little-known tribe in Cameroon: He lived in a mud hut with the aim of investigating the customs and beliefs of the Dowayo people. A whole series of anecdotes, misunderstandings, disasters and various hostilities await him that the author faces from the comic side.
4) Ebony
Author: Ryxzard Kapuscinski.
Interesting for… entering an African country for the first time. Essential if you are going to collaborate in the Orphanage and School of Nairobi or at the Center for Girls in Ngong Hills.
Is a required reading for every journalist, since it is the masterpiece of the best reporter of the 20th century. In it, Kapuscinski immerses himself in the African continent, but avoiding common places and stereotypes. She lives in the houses full of cockroaches of the poorest, sick with cerebral malaria, is in danger of death at the hands of a guerrilla... but despite everything she does not lose her lucid gaze. He shows us Africa openly: with its wars and its injustice, but also with the dignity of a people struggling to survive.
One of the girls who attend the solidarity project in Peru. |
5) The open veins of Latin America
Author: Eduardo Galeano.
Interesting for… before collaborating in the educational projects of Cusco and lamay, or at the rescue center for wildlife rescued in Bolivia.
Is Latin America a region of the world doomed to humiliation and poverty? Condemned by whom? The book attempts to provide answers to these and other questions about the Inequality, poverty and exploitation in several Latin American countries. From European colonization to the arrival of multinationals, the author reflects on the continuous looting of natural resources in the region. And all this, with a tone more typical of romantic and adventure novels than of essays.
Indigenous girls in Mexico. |
6) Marcos, the rebel dignity: conversations with Ignacio Ramonet
Author: Ignacio Ramonet.
Interesting if… you travel to Mexico, especially Chiapas or the Cultural Camps of San Cristobal.
Legendary character, Subcomandante Marcos, head of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), has been fighting since 1994 because the indigenous peoples of Mexico enjoy equal rights. Hidden behind his famous ski mask, in this book Here he explains the reasons for his rebellion and examines the marginalization of the peoples of the South in the era of economic globalization, while he dreams of another possible world.
Overview of the capital of Thailand. |
7) Fragile Days
Author: Tew Bunnag.
Interesting if… you travel to Thailand, especially if you collaborate in the solidarity travel that Tumaini proposes.
collection of short stories set in the city of Bangkok. They're taking us from the most depressed suburbs to the most luxurious mansions in the city. They cover the lives of people from different social classes and reflect the fragility of contemporary Thai society.