St. Mary’s student Samantha Partington, who is currently studying Childcare and Learning Development, has been keeping busy and active over the last few months participating in a ‘Living and Working Abroad’ course.

The course, which lasts five years, is funded by Social Services and organised by R.V. Projects.  R.V. Projects (Real Volunteers) is a group that recruits people to help prepare them so that they can carry out a project on behalf of a community abroad. Most recently one of these projects has been a 10 day visit to Romania.  Samantha, along with other volunteers, visited and helped redecorate a local youth centre in Bistrita during those 10 days.

Samantha said about her trip, “Visiting Romania was a great experience, especially meeting other young people there who have much less than we do. The trip made me appreciate what I have here.”

Samantha is now looking forward to visiting Bulgaria at the end of the month to help with a similar project.