The ‘Pen Pal’ Project

Alejandra has been involved with Lingo Flamingo since 2018. We met each other over Zoom for the first time with the company’s Development Manager Rosi to speak about Alejandra’s role as a tutor and her involvement in Lingo Flamingo’s project to ‘Tackle Isolation During Lockdown’.

The project started in March 2020 following the spread of COVID 19 in the UK and the restriction measures taken to safeguard the general public and care home residents and staff. Volunteers were matched with care homes and set about sending letters, postcards, and activity sheets to their befriending homes. 

During the pandemic, Alejandra recounted, staff were so stretched for time and resources and volunteers wanted to find a way to stay in contact with residents and to support the staff however they could. 

Rosi had mentioned that she felt it really was like ‘reinventing the wheel’ for the activity coordinators in terms of finding ways to organise activities and keep people active each day. Both Alejandra and Rosi recognised that this kind of preparation work sits on top of the staff’s working hours already. In understanding this, the project evolved as a small but practical way to help out.

Alejandra, who has two befriending homes, is still sending them material a year on.

She expressed that she couldn’t have sustained this if it weren’t for the feedback she received from Twitter, where she could see the effects of her efforts and make use of that information: 

‘One of the care homes was super active on Twitter and that gave me so many ideas and so much feedback, that it really allowed me to keep going...’

Alejandra has organised letters, crafts projects, quizzes, Spanish vocabulary lists, interactive atlases and more. Having spent time with students getting to know one another prior to the pandemic and with the additional social media feedback, Alejandra was able to continually evaluate the success of her projects. This included sending a variety of media for residents to craft with, such as stamps and scratch art boards. 

In one of Alejandra’s partnerships, she even occasionally exchanges notes in Spanish with one resident who can speak the language, in order to help her to continue with that extra form of communication.

‘I think of them all as my pen pals.’

Alejandra found Lingo Flamingo originally through a volunteering app and felt moved by the mission of language classes for older people to get involved. 

‘I loved the idea of being able to share something that I could really feel skilled on… because when you come here from a different country you feel so not skilled at all, sometimes you don’t even understand people talking to you and it's a bit frustrating... so being able to share something that I loved and was able to do properly, like speaking Spanish, felt fantastic.’

After volunteering for a while, she began teaching in some of Lingo Flamingo’s care home classes as a Spanish tutor. When asked about the shift from being a volunteer to a tutor, it was the apprehension that seemed to make the change most challenging. 

She described feeling nervous to begin with - worried about making mistakes, or not being able to understand people’s accents due to teaching in a second language. However, after releasing this initial fear she enjoyed the experience immensely. Not only were the residents helpful when they could see her struggling, but the staff were always supportive and keen to participate in the learning process.

A highlight of this experience for Alejandra was the module in which students tell stories of their childhood. She explained:

‘Once I lost the fear of not understanding, the experience itself was great. It’s great to meet different people, and when they tell you stories about their life - As an instance, this generation lived part of their childhood during the war, you know, it feels like you're getting a lot from them. I feel a bit selfish sometimes. In terms of experience, I think I receive more than I give.’

This seemed particularly the case when she recalled students chatting about culturally specific tales and superstitions, which Alejandra enjoyed exchanging with them very much. These small tales are something relative to almost everyone, and the differences between them make them fascinating. Alejandra recalled that she loves those moments, when something sparks and suddenly you’re hearing stories from someone’s past, or from their elders’ past. 

‘The moment they tell you something back, you’re really engaging… there’s a connection, and you’re really there with them… and you think, now it’s not just me telling you things; now we are doing this together.’

Her admiration for the support staff was equally palpable and poignant as she described the way they worked tirelessly to make every day a celebration. Their positive attitude and commitment to residents was something that Alejandra felt had a rippling effect within the community, where their care and passion for making every day important and celebratory inspired others to do the same. 

The overarching sentiment of our conversation was quite clear, from Alejandra to her pen pals, and from us to Alejandra and all our fantastic volunteers and tutors: THANK YOU!