My village has 2 pre-schools and I started working at them last week. I will "teach English" on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. I say that with quotes because these children are 3-5 years old and while it's true young children pick up languages fast, there are around 50-70 kids that come each day, depending on the weather of course, and it seems nearly impossible to be able to teach these kids English with any effectivenss. (That's a lot of toddlers!) I hope that I can be successful, but in the mean time, I will go and hang out with the kids and teachers, chat it up with the parents, play games, sing songs, and help the kids get ready for nap time.
At first the kids were all a bit leary of me simply because I'm a foreigner with blue eyes, and in their minds, I don't belong at their school. After a little while of sitting on the floor with them and being silly, they warmed up to me. Soon I had kids piled in my lap and grabbing my hands to go play on the swings with them. They are incredibly cute. There were quite a few that cried all morning because this was the first time being away from their parents, which oddly was even cuter. Crying asian kids, doesn't get much more adorable than that. A bonus to working at pre-schools is that it's an AMAZING way to learn Thai, since sadly, my Thai is at about the same level as theirs. This past week I learned a bunch of animals in Thai, which is pretty cool. I can now say zebra and kangaroo in Thai.
They want me to do youth devlepment in my village. My goal is to continue working at the pre-schools, but ultimately, I want work with middle school aged kids and form a youth group with a good group of kids and take them to the pre-schools. I want to form a mentorship program and have the older kids read to the pre-schoolers and teach them about life skills, etc. In theory, this is sustainable without me and I would simply be acting as a facilitator and mentor. The whole idea surrounding community development is that the volunteer acts as a catalyst and facilitator to help people make connections and create sustainable projects once the volunteer leaves and for years to come. I'm really excited about my project because kids are where I feel like I can have a real impact. I can act as a role model and mentor for these kids and hopefully really encourage them. It makes me really happy to think about the role I can and will play in their lives.
A lot of the time it doesn't feel like I'm accomplishing much here, but it's important to think of the little things and it makes me smile.
No comments:
Post a Comment