"I Feel I'm Contributing"

Kathleen Fritz spent two years as a Notre Dame Mission Volunteer in Lima, Peru. She taught the choir and was a musical accompanist for student groups at Fe y Alegria, a K through 11 school founded to educate the most impoverished of the city. She also tutored adults in the community.

Notre Dame Mission Volunteers is the international counterpart to Notre Dame AmeriCorps, a public/private partnership between the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur and AmeriCorps. Both are service programs designed to break the cycle of poverty through education and literacy. Members choose to devote up to two years of their lives to work alongside our Sisters across the US and in Kenya, Peru or Nigeria. In return they receive a living allowance, health care and an education grant. Volunteers are, typically, recent college graduates, retired executives and teachers or residents of the communities being served. They tutor children and adults, organize after-school enrichment programs and teach parenting and nutrition classes.

In Peru, Notre Dame Mission Volunteers work in Lima and Tambogrande as teachers and teaching assistants. Kathleen arrived in Lima three weeks after graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in English. She spoke about her experience:

"My experience here has broken down so many rigid mindsets. In America, we value ourselves and others based on how useful, productive and successful we are. In Peru, if people have enough money to eat that day, they're good.

"The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur bring education to the poor in the most abandoned places because education, more than anything else, can help lift people out of poverty. In a very small way, I feel I'm contributing to that effort."