VOLPA: Arrupe’s legacy is alive 30 years later

In 2021 we celebrate the 30th anniversary of VOLPA, an international volunteer programme inspired by the legacy of Pedro Arrupe. His call to reach out to other cultures and to change the unjust structures that generate suffering in our world ignited this project, which today looks back in gratitude for so many transformed lives.

Since its creation in 1991, more than 1,000 people have participated in this international volunteer programme that emerged as a volunteer network of the Society of Jesus in its different Provinces in Spain. Throughout its history, this programme has been supported by Volpa Catalunya, Entreculturas and Alboan. It is the latter two that are working to give continuity to the programme.

Although in 2021 Pedro Arrupe’s International Volunteering looks back on these thirty years of history, “this programme is very much alive: VOLPA is above all the future“, said Dani Villanueva SJ, Executive Vice-President of Entreculturas and Alboan. In its three decades of activity, VOLPA has adapted to and overcome historical and cultural challenges. That is precisely the essence of the programme: to grow agents of change through encounter. 

Some of these change agents today share their vision and experiences of the programme:

• Volunteering is a way of life. It is a way of being in this world, of participating in life, of a life discovered through solidarity. Manu Andueza, VOLPA in Ecuador

• People cease to be a number and take on a face, a life, a history… of which I became part, and they became part of mine. It changed my view of the process of forced migration. I learned to support women victims of gender-based violence, without judging them, empathising, being… I learned to respect, but also to respect myself, to forgive and to forgive myself. Gemma López Poveda, Nicaragua

• Without a doubt, the greatest things I learned were to trust and live in uncertainty; to simply “be” and listen, because many times it is the best thing you can do; and to never stop discovering yourself thanks to all those people who accompany you along the way. Laura Flores, Nicaragua. 

Today VOLPA works in more than 10 cities in Spain. In addition to the coordinating team in each institution, it is made up of more than 50 trainers and companions who prepare around 40 people each year. Most of the participants, after a nine-month training process, work for one or two years in countries and projects in Latin America and Africa where Fe y Alegría, the Jesuit Refugee Service, the Jesuit Migrant Service, social centres and other works of the Society of Jesus or nearby institutions are present. Arrupe’s legacy is still alive 30 years later.

To celebrate this 30th anniversary, an online meeting was organised, attended by more than 220 people to celebrate and express their gratitude for all that this international volunteer experience has meant in their lives. Words such as gratitude, transformation, life, love, learning, humility, friendship, justice, faith, global citizenship… echoes of the impact that this experience of meeting people from other cultures and in contexts of high vulnerability has left in their lives and that allows a new way of seeing and being in the world. 

If you are interested or have any questions, do not hesitate to write to your nearest VOLPA office: [email protected] or [email protected]. All information available at www.alboan.org and www.entreculturas.org