#Volunteerstories: Marion Terrien

My experience as a volunteer psychologist at CHS Alternativo in the center of Iquitos was a great professional and human adventure during the 5 months I stayed there. I chose CHS for its impressive work and its national commitment to defend and promote human rights, both at the political level through its role of denouncing and investigating the phenomena of human trafficking and sexual and labour exploitation, and at the individual and social level with a work of attention to the victims.

Thanks to the trust of the team in Iquitos and Lima, and also to the good reception of the beneficiaries and their families, I was able to achieve my professional objective of having a very serious professional experience in an NGO outside my country. As a clinical psychologist with a specialization in Intercultural Psychology, my work with the team consisted of accompanying the beneficiaries in a process of positive and lasting change, individually or in groups (regular interviews, social skills workshops or with a clinical approach).

I was able to develop my capacities of adaptation, comprehension and my abilities as a psychologist to invent new ways of working so that they are adapted to the social and cultural environment and to each person accompanied. The work was mostly active fieldwork next to office work: visiting families in their homes, meeting educational staff, developing workshops, accompanying victims in public institutions to demand their rights (social, economic, educational or in justice), participating in events and meetings with public authorities, writing reports of visits and drawing up individual plans for case follow-up, etc. I also had the opportunity to train a group of educational personnel in Lima and to participate in different spaces of professional exchange with the team from Lima and Iquitos. The diversity of the missions of the work as a psychologist was very interesting and I advise this volunteering to all psychologists who want to develop an immersion experience and a field work. I thank CHS Alternativo for everything they have shared and for that very important experience in my professional career.