Luis Picalua volunteers in the Computer Training Program at the Immigrant Centre. Of his volunteer experience since joining the Centre in January 2016 he says, “For me this year has been very easy, because it’s something that I have work with all my personal life.”
Luis has a Bachelor degree in Computer Science from Central University of Venezuela, and he’s used to working with programs like Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Seeing people succeed makes Luis happy.
“I like it because this is something, when someone doesn’t know what’s up with the computers, that I can explain how to work that with the computers,” Luis said. “They’re very grateful, when you explain and they understand, they thank you for that little thing that you take for granted.”
Luis has helped develop the computer classes he volunteers in. He’s grateful that the Centre has good resources to help him teach.
“The IC has several courses that are developed for each necessity of the people,” Luis said. “Usually we have one thing for each month; one aim that we try and improve material on the course when people feel more comfortable with the software we teach.”
Luis volunteers for 2 hours a week, for a total of 79 volunteer hours to date. He chose to volunteer at the Immigrant Centre because it offered classes that he felt he could really help with because of his training.
“I was looking around the west side and I discovered here has this kind of volunteer, computer science. So that’s a kind of volunteer I know, that for me will be more easy,” he said.
He’s enjoyed getting to know his fellow volunteers, and has helped many people learn some important skills in the process.
“They need this kind of knowledge in order to find work,” Luis said.
Luis talked about how supportive people are in each class. He spoke specifically of one student who was making a poster in PowerPoint for her mother. She spent about a month on a slide, and everyone helped when they could. When she finished, everyone was delighted.
“That’s very nice; that when you can see the result of this kind of job,” Luis said.
Written by Jennifer Doerksen