Student Journals: AIFS in Rome, Italy

Meredith Deacon
Assumption College
Richmond in Rome, Italy
Volunteer at LIPU

Meredith Deacon My volunteer site this semester was LIPU, or how I referred to it, the wild bird rescue center located near Villa Borghese in Rome. I have a very strong background in volunteering in many different situations and different populations. However, I had never had the opportunity to volunteer with animals before coming to Rome. My deep love for animals and my interest in taking advantage of new things while studying abroad motivated me to ask to be placed at LIPU this semester. And what an experience it has been.

Luckily, I have had the pleasure of volunteering during the same time as a fellow Richmond studen,t and we have gotten to know each other very well over the course of the semester. I do not know if I would have gotten to know her as well without this shared experience, so I am grateful to LIPU for that. I am also grateful to LIPU’s staff, who were patient with us when we did know Italian as well as they may have liked. The language barrier definitely made it a challenge going, and some days it was rather frustrating, but it gave me great satisfaction when I was able to break through that barrier and learn something new. It gave me more self-confidence, which helped me personally, particularly in my relations with Italians this semester.

The birds themselves originally scared me quite a bit, but as I fed them and interacted with them more and more, I was able to eventually get used to them, even being able to hold some of them. LIPU gave me the opportunity to do things I never thought I would do such as catch a duck with my bare hands, clean cages, feed chicks to owls, and even assist on a surgery on a badger. In my opinion, I did not come to Rome to do the things I do back home in the US. I cam to have new experiences, meet new people, and learn new things. LIPU helped me achieve those goals I had for myself.

At times it felt like there was not enough to do, or that the staff was ignoring us, but I think this kept me acutely aware of the fact that even though I have come to consider Rome my home, it is not and there are just some times when I won’t be able to break through barriers with others. Ultimately what I am trying to say is that volunteering at LIPU kept me humble and more grateful of the fact that I am living in another culture, with a very different language, and helped me to gain important listening skills when it came to my Italian class. In other words, LIPU helped me be more self-aware of my own abilities with Italian and other things.

I think a lot of people who volunteer take for granted how much you receive when you give your time and your help to another person, organization, or in my case an animal. Volunteering at LIPU this semester allowed me to see a side of Rome not many of my fellow students at Richmond got to. It let me see the people who make Rome work in so many ways. I did not just see the people who are involved in the tourist or restaurant business; I got to meet and get to know real Romans in their workplace. I got to see that no matter old you get, it is still ok to talk to animals and love them.

One person can change the world, mostly by trying to change their own piece of it. That is why I studied abroad, and volunteering at LIPU helped me to gain a lot of the confidence I needed to make those changes stick. It also let me give back to the city that has given me so much without ever asking for anything in return. I am extremely grateful to both LIPU and Richmond for this wonderful opportunity and hope many more study abroad students get to share in this kind of experience.