service learning – GW Blogs from Abroad

Reading Partners in Phumlani

AdminApril 8, 2014December 14, 2018

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

Project Amal ou Salam – Working with Syrian Refugee Children

AdminApril 7, 2014

This week I had a truly eye-opening experience. After months of waiting, the week had finally arrived where I would travel north to the Syrian border to work with Syrian refugee children through Project Amal ou Salam.

Project Amal ou Salam is a week long camp for Syrian Refugee children. We had 20 volunteers fly in from around the world to participate. In this week, I worked with close to 1,000 Syrian Refugee children. I really had no idea what I was in for before the week began, but now that it has ended, it is time for me to reflect on what just happened.

I was a team leader for “Fareek al-Ahmar” (Team Red). Between me and one other girl, we were assigned to take care of up to 50 Syrian Refugee children each day, between the ages of 5-13. I have held many internships in my life dealing with international affairs, but this was the first time I actually found myself in the field, dealing first hand with refugees. Every day, we arrived early morning at the venue we had rented out for the camp. The children would arrive and we split them up based on their age groups. We took them around all day to different workshops including sports, photography, art, music and team building/trust building. A lot of these kids don’t even go to school, and this was the one-day they had a chance to experience the life of a child. It was a day of empowerment for them, as we asked them to rebuild Syria in art class, taught them about viewing one issue from different perspectives in photography class, and more. At the end of each day, we I was met with hard goodbyes from the kids, as they made me promise that I would see them again the next day.

Every day, little Syrian refugees came in from all walks of life, but they had one thing in common: they all had their childhoods ripped away from them. I was so shocked to discover so many things. I noticed kids without limbs, kids with scars all over their face, kids in extreme distress. Throughout the days, we would feed the children breakfast, lunch and a snack, yet many of them kept coming up to me and telling me they were hungry. I found out later that they were quietly saving the food we were giving them to bring home to their siblings. I found out that many of them did not have both parents, or any parents. I witnessed with my own eyes six year olds screaming chants about bringing down the regime, bringing down Bashaar Assad.

As I was talking to these children, I gained more and more knowledge about their backgrounds. Engaging in conversations with these little kids, I learned how much they knew about the world. They knew all about the war, they knew about nationalism, they knew about pain, hunger, death and suffering. They have been through more than any human should ever go through, and at such a young age. Their ‘backpacks’ that they carried were small black totes with the title “UNHCR” written across them. These were the refugees; these were the kids that were in such a devastating place in life that aid had to be delivered.

One thing I noticed as well was that these kids never smiled in the photos I took. The only time they did smile was when I caught them actually being happy. It’s very interesting since we grew up our lives learning that you should always smile in pictures. These kids only smile when they actually feel the emotion. I feel so lucky that I could have been a part of this project to bring them that emotion, and I hope that there are many more projects like these in the future to help empower the youth of Syria and give them hope for the future.

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

The Final Stretch

AdminNovember 22, 2013December 14, 2018

By dwynn15

I have just less than a month here in the Dominican Republic. The next three weeks are going to be extremely tough with all of the important deadlines approaching; I have entered the final stretch. In just over a week, on December 2^nd, I will be doing my final presentation about my research in front of the director of my community organization, the teachers who work there, and my own professors. The day of my presentation is also when I will be presenting my project, a behavioral management guide, to the teachers with whom I work.

Violence amongst the children in the third grade classroom is as big of a problem as it was when I first arrived at the school, even after the expulsion of a child with the most violent behavior. Furthermore, I have spent a bit of time with the kindergarten and second grade class, and I see that rough violence expressed by the children towards one another is a school wide issue. For this reason especially, I am hoping the findings of my research will be helpful in terms of how to deal with, reduce, eliminate, and prevent violence in the school.

I think that one thing that has made me more invested in this research project is the fact that violence against women is a huge issue in this country. It worries me tremendously when I see the male students punching and hitting their female classmates with a great amount of force and no hesitation. That is not to say that such dangerous fighting between two nine year old boys is okay just because they are boys; however, the girls fight back less. I worry that this type of behavior will contribute to the persistence of violence against women as a norm without much consequence in their adult lives. As I am finishing up my research, I am thinking about recommendations for the teachers and parents of the children to lessen the violent behaviors that the children express. For the near future, my hope is that this school sees less violence so that it can be a safe and comfortable place to learn, as it should be. For the more distant future, I hope that the children grow up showing less violence for their children to observe, so that each generation to come progresses in how they treat each other.

Next time you all will hear from me I will either be on my way home or will have just arrived!

My research project on school violence in the DR continues. I hope to find some useful recommendations to improve the issue! #GWU #GWAbroad

Namaste!

AdminJanuary 7, 2013December 14, 2018

By scarsonnn

My name is Sarah Carson and I am one of the Commitment to Community blog contributors for Spring 2013. At GW, I study International Affairs, concentrating in Development. More than anything, I love to serve--whether it's as a volunteer English teacher in Thailand, a Staffer for Colonial Inauguration, a leader of Alternative Winter Break Nicaragua, a volunteer intern at the Peace Corps, or Vice President of my sorority. In eleven short days, I will arrive at my new home for the semester, New Delhi, India, bringing that same spirit of service to a completely new environment. ...continue reading "Namaste!"