Isabel O’Brien – GW Blogs from Abroad

"They Call Me Umlungu."

AdminMay 15, 2014December 14, 2018

While it seems like most study abroad students are heading back to the U.S., I still have about a month and a half left to wrap up my research and volunteer work in Cape Town. This Tuesday, I’ll be teaching my fourth pre-primary workshop at the Phumlani Village DayCare. I’ve spent the last week painstakingly perfecting this weeks lesson plan after what I would call last Tuesday’s disappointing failure. Although I had gone to the Daycare center confident in the literacy activities I had planned for the children, the day quickly turned from productive to chaotic in a matter of seconds. Hyperactivity and lack of discipline have been major problems in implementing my project in Phumlani, even more so than the language barrier. The children who are focused and excited to participate in the activities are often overshadowed by students who are unable to sit still, who yell, and who fight one another on a constant basis. The group of children I’m working with has now grown in number to about thirteen five year olds, when initially my goal was to work with 6-8. The Mamas who work at the creche are able to calm the rowdy students down for a few minutes, but soon after their backs are turned the chaos ensues. The lack of discipline is not unexpected, though, since most of the children have never been in a classroom environment or any kind of formal and structured setting before. Moreover many of the children lack parental supervision and structure at home.
I’m working with my capstone supervisor Val, who has worked in primary education for the last thirty years, to develop some classroom management tools for my program. She recommended using incentives, most likely in the form of candy, to positively reinforce good behavior and motivate the less focused children. Initially she had suggested talking firmly with them and explaining that their behavior was unacceptable, but I explained that there is a complete lack of respect for authority among a few of the children that I am working with. To many of the children that I work with I’m just “Umlungu,” meaning white person. They don't see me as a teacher, I just seem like something foreign to them. Val, was extremely upset when she heard this because she immediately identified the children's actions as one of the many consequences of Apartheid and how the past is still negatively impacting the education system in South Africa.
Val suggested that rather than try to formally teach the kids literacy, I should take more of a Learn Through Play Approach to pre-primary education. She helped me pick ten workshop topics, ranging from Colors to the Environment, that I could center my lesson plans around and encouraged me to focus more on games and crafts. This week I’m creating a lesson plan on Colors which will include activities like making patterned, colored macaroni necklaces, making rainbows with coffee filters and food dye, and making puppets relating to the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Val also gave me a Grade R Curriculum guide, which has really helped me understand not only what pre-primary students should be learning at this stage, but how they should be learning.
I know that when I return to GW I’ll continue to work with DC Reads as I have for the past two years, but I think when I return I’ll have a greater respect and appreciation for the teachers that I work with. Especially, the kindergarten teachers who work with ESL students. I hadn’t realized how much time and energy goes into creating lesson plans. It’s not just fun and games even when the lesson plan literally includes games. I’m never going to forget the time that I’ve spent in the Phumlnai community. Even though there were times when I felt like I could cry in frustration at myself for not being able to communicate with the kids the way I wanted to and at the kids for not listening to me the way I wanted them to, there were so many more times when I felt inspired and motivated by being around them. I can’t predict how the rest of my time in South Africa will go, but now that I’m working with Val my spirits have lifted and I feel determined to make the best pre-primary program possible for the children of Phumlani.

-Isabel

Reading Partners in Phumlani

AdminApril 8, 2014December 14, 2018

By iobrien1093

This past week, I finally submitted an Independent Research Proposal to my Capstone Project supervisor. For my capstone I am creating a basic literacy curriculum for New Chapter’s After School Program in Phumlani Village, which does not have an educational component at this time. Since nearly 70% of Phumlani’s residents are unemployed and do not have the means to pay school fees, many children do not attend primary school. This reality exists in townships all over South Africa, and as a result, nearly 80 percent of South African learners do not develop basic reading skills by the time they reach Grade 5. Those learners will not likely succeed in secondary-school education, which will in turn compromise their options for post-school learning, career opportunities, and general wellbeing in life.

Phumlani’s literacy program will take place either at the community center or in the local library and will target primary school learners from Kindergarten to Grade 3, as well as children who have never been enrolled in school. I am creating a handbook with a curriculum that includes lesson plans for weekly literacy workshops as well as workbook activities and short stories that coincide with each workshop. I am also creating an Indigogo webpage that will provide the means for printing and for each child to receive his or her own workbook to bring home. Ideally, I would like this handbook to be the initial step in the development of a larger mentorship program in which New Chapter would partner with a local high school to form a one-on-one mentorship program using the handbook as the curriculum. The greatest challenge to this program is that most of the children speak three languages: Xhosa, Afrikaans, and English. Their levels of English vary drastically, so this program will not just be a literacy program, but a literacy program for ESL learners. As I speak neither Afrikaans nor Xhosa it would be nearly impossible for me to formally tutor the children myself, which is why I’m hoping that New Chapter will be able to partner with locals who speak the children’s home language. Thankfully, Malcolm Josephs, the founder of New Chapter, speaks Afrikaans fluently, knows nearly all of the children in Phumlani as well as their families, and will be able to help me establish the children’s English skills for the purposes of forming the curriculum.

Although I am creating the handbook for future purposes, I am also working with the children informally on a weekly basis, in order to better understand their learning styles and what activities are able to successfully motivate them to learn. I would like to get the name and grade level of each child who attends the afterschool program. Then I will create a log of their general literacy levels. This would be helpful to the future volunteers who will work with specific children. Once I’ve established the baseline literacy levels I will split the children into two groups based on reading skill, one group focusing on basic phonetic skills and the alphabet and the other more advanced group focusing on improving reading comprehension. I would work with each group for an hour each week. At the end of the semester I would interview the children to understand if their attitudes about reading have changed.

This week I am distributing consent forms to the parents of the children who will participate in the program. Later, this week once the signed forms are returned, I will distribute a short survey to assess the children’s attitudes about reading. I foresee that my research plan will change as I begin more hands-on work with the children. I’m expecting my greatest challenge to be the language barrier, but also that some of the kids are very shy about answering questions. These next few weeks will be hectic, and I’ll have to adapt my research along the way, but I’m relieved to finally have a foundation for my project and to be able to start working.

Isabel

Molo Phumlani!

AdminMarch 17, 2014December 14, 2018

By iobrien1093

I’ve been working at New Chapter Foundation for the last three weeks, splitting my time between the organization’s new office building and the community center in Phumlani Village. Initially, I thought I would spend my time in the village’s community center tutoring children or assisting with the after-school homework club, but I quickly realized on my first day of volunteering that international students are essential in the development of most of New Chapter’s programs, as it is such a young organization lacking the means to hire many employees.

At the moment, I’m working with two other volunteers from CIEE on about three different programs that are all in their initial stages of development. The first is a Youth Advice Center, which aims to provide the youth of Phumlani, as well as drop-outs and students from local high schools, with the resources, computer skills training, and scholarship information to enable them to achieve their educational and career aspirations. The problem is that New Chapter is presently without Internet connection or a phone line, so we can’t even begin recruiting youth to the office without first fundraising at least $1,000 dollars for Telekom Service. Once we have the money, trained volunteers will deliver workshops to the participants. We’ve spent the last week creating and sharing an Indiegogo fundraising webpage for New Chapter that will hopefully draw in the funds to kickoff the advice center by the end of March.

Our second project is an art program that will target the mothers of Phumlani Village, many of whom are unemployed and spend their days at home with the children. The project is meant to provide these mothers with their own income by asking them to create art and jewelry from buttons that will be donated from local retail stores. We have already received about 8 boxes of buttons and elastic from a single retailer. Last week, we spoke to one of the head “Mamas” of the village, asking her to spread the word to other Mamas who might be interested in participating. Although she was interested in working with New Chapter, Mama was extremely skeptical as to whether the designs would actually sell and whether New Chapter would be as invested in marketing the project as the Mamas would be in creating the pieces. From our conversation it was clear that these women have been promised things before that they have never actually received. It’s difficult to reassure these women without having experience with this type of project. At this point there’s no concrete way to convince them that it will be successful.

The third project will be the After School Club at the Phumlani Community Center. I had thought when I started working at New Chapter that the After School Club was an organized, year round, five days a week program, but I discovered last week that it actually occurs once a week and only when international volunteers are available to run it. I was frustrated by this fact, since the After School Club was a major part of the reason why I chose to work at New Chapter in the first place. I had planned for the program to be the foundation of my capstone/independent research project. It felt like there were too many projects depending on volunteers and that I was being assigned my capstone project even if I had no experience or understanding of how to go about developing it. It was a very overwhelming week, but when we opened the after school club for the afternoon last Friday it was actually very successful. We haven’t yet set up a homework club, as of now it’s just drawing and soccer games, but the kids are so excited to have somewhere to go and something to do after school other than walk the streets.

After leaving Phumlani that day, I met with my Service Learning advisor to sort out my mess of thoughts into a set of organized goals. She helped me realize that I’m not alone in this service project and that I’m not expected to know how to set up these programs by myself. She directed me find a project in New Chapter that I would really enjoy working on for the next three months even if wasn't something that the director of New Chapter had initially planned for me. It was a relief to have someone know my worries and to have her provide me with resources and connections. I decided that I would like to create a Reading Partners program for my cap stone project where I will match high school students from one of the high schools affiliated with CIEE with a Xhosa or Afrikaans speaking child from Phumlani.

It’s been a busy few weeks, with some bumps in the road, but I finally feel like I’m able to visualize what the next three months will look like.

Isabel

New Chapter in Cape Town

AdminMarch 2, 2014December 14, 2018

By iobrien1093

Exactly, three weeks ago I landed at Cape Town International Airport where I nervously exited the plane, unsure of what I was supposed to do next. To my surprise, I encountered fifteen singing and dancing CIEE staff members waiting to welcome me and the other CIEE students to South Africa. Three weeks later, the staff’s enthusiasm hasn’t waned a bit; it’s hard to feel anything but excited when I’m around them. Thus far, my group has done everything from cable car-ing up Table Mountain for a gorgeous sunset, to exploring Langa Township, to touring Robben Island and learning about Mandela’s life and imprisonment. The weeks have flown by, but at the same time I can’t believe all that we’ve accomplished.

I’m studying abroad this spring with CIEE’s Service Learning Program in Cape Town, South Africa. Starting Monday, I’ll be taking 4 academic courses related to poverty and community development, including: Intensive ixiXhosa, Social Research Methods, Community Partnership: Theory and Engagement, and Poverty and Development. These courses are different from many of the Human Services and Public Health courses I’ve taken back home, as they involve experiential learning and reflection. Alongside my academic courses, I’ll also be completing an independent research and Capstone Project at a service site within the community. The program offers the opportunity to choose one of seven different service sites, with focus areas ranging from recycling to tuberculosis and medicine. Twice a week, I will be spending the day at New Chapter Foundation, a community center that serves nearly 60 children, ages 6-18, in under-developed Phumlani Village. New Chapter Foundation helps children and young adults realize their potential by building academic life skills, offering relevant training and development opportunities, enhancing talents, and empowering youth to live a Life of Purpose. The community center offers a day care and after-care program meant to keep children both active and safe between school and the time when they’ll have parental supervision. While at New Chapter I will be split my time between the office where I will assist with administrative tasks, and the daycare where I’ll assist with academic programs and with supervising the children. For my capstone project I would like to undertake research into establishing a library for the children or into enhancing the aftercare literacy program in some way. I begin serving at New Chapter this week and will be able to see then which projects would be most beneficial to the staff and to the community.

I chose CIEE’s service learning in Cape Town program for two reasons. The first was that I’ve always been drawn to the idea of participating in a less traditional program. I’m hoping to work in international community development after graduation and I thought service-learning in Cape Town would give me a better understanding of my interests as well as the exposure to problems impacting underdeveloped communities. I’ve traveled abroad before but I wanted a program that would push me completely out of my comfort zone. In Cape Town, I can experience the culture and the languages of completely different communities through voluntarism and hands on service. Secondly, I chose this program for its structure. It’s a smaller program, with only 23 students from all over the U.S. We take all of our classes together, we’re guided through the capstone project together, and we even live together on the same floor of an apartment building. I’ll also be serving at New Chapter with two other girls from my program. This program is the perfect way to break out of my comfort zone while still feeling like I have a solid family behind me to depend on. We’ve all grown so close in just a short time. I can’t imagine spending my time abroad in any other way.

Can’t wait to see what this week has in store!

Isabel