Last week, when my teenage daughter came back from school, she proudly showed me her newly bought t-shirt. This t-shirt had an intriguing slogan: "The invisible children."

After asking her few questions and to my incredulous look, she told me the following: "An organisation from the U.S. came to our school and spoke to us about child soldiers in Congo and other African countries. This organisation is on a school tour in North America. It sells crafts and other items in order to help raise money that will be used to award these kids scholarships... Isn't that great?" She was very enthusiastic.

Hello, my name is Caroline Bond. I live in Montreal and I am in grade 11. This past summer I earned the opportunity through Lifeworks International to go to Peru for 21 days along with 18 other teens from around the world.

It was an adventure I'll never forget. We worked about eight hours a day on four main service projects in and around the city of Cuzco. These included finishing building a preschool and community centre, constructing ceramic and mud stoves for health, economic and environmental benefits, working at a teenage mother shelter (Casa Mantay), and aiding in a variety of ecotourism projects in the Amazon.

My expectations