December 2018

I have been volunteering at TEAD for 11 weeks from the beginning of September until the end of November 2018.

I worked there three days a week from Monday until Wednesday dedicating 3-4 hours I am from Austria and I just graduated and decided to go abroad for some months between school and university. I wanted to visit Canada, as I love the country, I did a journey with my family in the beginning of my stay here and I wanted to improve my English, as I really like the language. I was lucky, as one of my teachers has family in Dundas and they became my host family. I wanted to volunteer somewhere and do something social and with animals. So my host family tried to help me find a place for me to work. Their neighbours told them about TEAD and that's how I finally found you! And I am really lucky and very happy about that!

As my host mother volunteers at the Salvation Army, I decided to join her once a week on Thursday mornings, in order to work there too. Besides that, I did a lot of trips in Ontario with my host family and just travelled around the country. My hobbies where walking my host dog , running and doing other sports. Back home I used to go horseback riding for ten years. However I stopped two years ago, because of the lack of time and I really missed it. Thus, when you gave me the opportunity to ride Ellie and Willie, it really made me smile, as I was very happy to be back on the back of a horse again! I am very thankful for that and appreciate that you gave me this opportunity!

First of all, I love horses and really enjoyed working with them and just being around them, grooming them and caring for them. Furthermore, I really love what TEAD does for all those disabled people! I really could see how most of them loved to come there and ride the horses! It was nice to see their happiness and how much the movements of the horses helped them to relax! I also learned some knew things about myself and got to know an unknown social side of me. I really liked to work with those people and their happiness and positivity impressed me from week to week.

I really was looking forward to see some specific riders again each week, just because of their attitude towards life. One of them even asked me for my contact details in order to stay in contact with me, which made me extremely happy, as I would love to do that, so we already exchanged our contact details!

I will definitely recommend people to volunteer at TEAD or an organization like TEAD, as it is a very inspiring experience and a big life lesson!