Our start at the NGO wasnt that easy, esp. because the founder wasnt there and things were really unorganized. In general, life here is more unorganized and complicated than in Nicaragua.
Mariposas Amarillas was founded a few years ago and it works in two barrios, Barrio Oasis and Barrio Fundadores. We mainly work in Fundadores, a barrio were the NGO just started their work. And while working there you can feel how hard it is establishing and growing an NGO. In comparison, La Esperanza Granada was quite well developed...but it is interesting to see the difference.
The school of MA is a small, non public school. The parents of the kids pay a monthly fee, which is not that much, and kids go to school only in the mornings. We figured out quite soon that we dont want to work with kids again, so we had to come up with our own project. Oscar, the founder, was a great help in that regard. In the end, we are even working on two projects.
Project 1 Giving English classes to adults
Every day from 4 to 5.30pm we give English classes to a group of about 10 adults. Some of them know a bit, some know nothing. It is fun teaching them. They are quite, have lots of discipline and listen to what you say. As the kids in Nicaragua, they have difficulties with the pronouncation but they get better every day. Also, all of them are coming almost every day...that shows their dedication and passion!
To teach, we only have a little white board and a couple of plastic chairs...some of the plastic chairs are for kids...so, conditions are not perfect, but thats one of the things we learned working here in Central and South America ... being flexible and working under non perfect conditions.
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| Our students, the moto of giovanni in the back, the yellow house is the school and the poster you see was one of our promotion posters for the english class |
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| magdalena with our students |
Project 2 Community Assessment of Barrio Fundadores
During the day we help another volunteer doing a communit assessment with the barrio. Cameron, the volunteer who is in charge, studies at the Columbia University New York and if we get enough people taking part, to be exact 267, the survey will be scientifical and will be of great use. That means, we go from house to house and ask people to take part in a survey which has a bout 30 questions about the needs of the community, e.g. how satisfied are the people with the medical service, with the amount of activities offered to kids, etc. This is super interesting since you get the chance to talk to the people, see where they live...but it is also sad when you see how their life looks like and how disappointed some of them are...
In the end, we gonna use the survey to find out more which courses, offers, workshops, etc the community needs. So, when other volunteers come in and talk to the founder, he can say right away, we need someone to give dance classes to young adults or we need to offer more English classes, etc. We also hope that the founder will use the results to appy for grants at other foundations or the government, e.g. about medical services. Due to the fact that we only stay 6 weeks in total, we wont experience what actually happens with the results of the survey, but it can be powerful and it can be used for a lot!
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| our community assesment team, magdalena with cameron and alix in front of our fav.restaurant in the barrio where we had a great lunch for 3 USD |
VOLUNTEERING NICARAGUA
SUMMER SCHOOL (DEC and JAN)
When we started our work here in Granada, there were still vacations. But as mostly all of the kids stay at their homes and do not go anywhere for holidays, our organisation, La Esperanza, provides a summer school in one of the 6 barrios it is usually working in. Summer school only takes place from 9 to 12am and there is no obligation for the kids to attend school, of course.
We had classes from 1st to 4th grade and we had around 5 to 7 volunteers for each grade. There were no teachers - so we, the volunteers, had to organize the entire lesson: Math, Lengua (Spanish, of course), Art, Sports.
What MICHAEL says
I was in the 2nd grade with some other guys from France, Germany, Russia and Spain. Each friday afternoon we met to make a plan for the next week, what we would teach them on which day and who would prepare the class and the stuff we need for it. We were a really good team and had lots of fun while doing it
What did we do exactly?
in Spanish: practising the difficulties with some letters, like b and v or j and g. Story of pictures or read a little text and try to answer the questions.
Maths: multiplications till 4, additions and substractions and we tried to teach them to solve easy problems like: Maria goes to the market and buys 5 eggs. Each egg costs 3 cords, how much does she have to pay?
Art: we handcrafted a lot of funny things like fishs, flowers, masks...
In the end, I really loved summer school because you had your class, your kids and you could decide what to teach them! Of course, this meant also a lot of work at home, but it was worth it.
Thanks to my favourite kids Jose, Kevin, Miguel, Yamileth, Ashley, for being great kids and thanks to all my volunteer partners, Elodie, Sonja, Nabila, Saskia, Dmitry y Mikel, who made this to a unique experience. I am sure we did a great job.
What MAGDALENA says
I taught in 3rd grade together with Tamara, my flatmate from Russia, Lynda, a girl from England, and Christine, a girl from Dublin.
In Math we taught them how to multiply until 12 - however, at the end of summer school they still did not know the tablas. One of the reasons is that they do not study at home, but also these kids have no one at home who tells them to study or helps them. Most of the kids rather have to go to the market with their parents or taking care of the household.
In Spanish we read short stories and practiced how to write difficult words like llevar, vivir, haber, etc. This was a very strange experience for me since I as a foreigner knew better how to write the words than the kids themselves.
The kids at summer school were amazing, so open minded, friendly, patient...they showed lots of motivation and energy!
End of summer school
Summer school ended beginning of February. We organized a little fiesta with a little theater, 2 dances and some games. This was lots of fun! The kids loved especially the theater play and the dances!
REGULAR VOLUNTEERING WITH LA ESPERANZA (FEB - NOV)
When you work as a volunteer here at La Esperanza you can give computer classes, English classes or you assisst the teachers at the school. In total we work with 6 schools in the barrios around Granada. Most of the schools only have little supplies and class rooms are way too small for the numer of kids they hold. In the schools we are teaching are about 30 to 50 students per class. It can get quite loud and it can also get quite packed in the class. For example, in one class there are so many chairs that the teacher has only 50cm between the chairs and the board...
Here are some pictures from the class rooms and the schools:
Michael works as a teaching assisstant, Magdalena in the English team. Let us explain our work a bit!
Working as a teaching assisstant....
I work in a school called Pablo Antonio and a assisst in two different classes, both 2nd grade - one in the morning from 9.30 to 12 and one in the afternoon from 1pm to 3pm. It is the first year for the organisation, La Esperanza, in this school and everyone was a bit afraid of how it would be, as the work with the teachers here can be difficult, but in this school not at all.
They have a great director (a woman) who is so happy and delighted having us in the school and supporting her team of teachers. We had a warm hearted welcome with a presentation on the stage of the schoolyard and a big applause. This really helped us starting our work in the school.
Every volunteer is in one class with another volunteer of Nicaragua ( a so called ayudante) and we try to help the teachers to manage their classes of around 30 to 50 kids. If you imagine the teaching in these classes please forget everything about German or European disciplin! While the teacher or we are explaining something to one or some of the kids, be sure that 5 or 15 others are arguing, fighting, jumping, running, laughing or just shouting your name through the whole classroom.... Well, you get used to it and finally I accepted that I will never reach silence in these classrooms, so my mission here is to teach and help the kids who need and want my help.
Nevertheless, mostly all of the kids are lovely and they loved us from the 1st day on. You really note that they are happy to have some young guys hanging around with them in the classrooms or the schoolyard and they also show their affection by hugging and laughing with you all the time. Actually, you have to love them!!! :)
My first mission here was, or actually still is, to teach them how to tell the time. So I handcrafted a big clock and did some exercises on a sheet for them.
At the other grade, in the afternoon, we did a small lesson on geographics...told them about the continents and the location of Nicaragua.
Teaching spanish is the hardest thing as we have in both classes kids who write and read quite well, but then also some who do not even know all letters, not speaking about reading! What these kids do, is only copying, (not writing, but more like painting ) the letters of the board. So we try to handle this by forming groups.
The funniest thing is, that I am called Profe Michael!! (Professor).
4.3.2012
Globus, Geographie.
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| Ana was really proud of her globus! |
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| ca.half the class & my colleage Scarlett from Granada on the right and the teacher, Prof Yamileth, on the left |
As our afternoon class start to learn geografie and how the world looks like, we decided to do some handicrafts with our kids. Look at our results...
It was quite hard to convince them not to shoot their globe all the time, but in the end ALL kids had one and noone destroyed it.
Well, as they did not wait for our help where to put all the continents, now we have some globes with asia next to america and europe next to australia, but well, who cares....the most important thing was having an idea of how the world looks like and having some fun while doing it.
Michael
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| Also Magdalena loved our globus! ;-) |
Working in the English team...
Together with 3 other girls from Canada, Sweden and France I teach English from 1st to 6th grade at two schools.On Monday, Wednesday and Friday we go to El Escudo, on Tuesday and Thursday we go to Pablo Antonio (same school as Michael). We teach from 9.30 to 12 and then again from 1pm to 3pm, but different classes. We always have an ayudante, Karla, with us. She is great! She helps us if we have communication problems with the kids or the teachers.
The level of English knowledge the kids have greatly varies from class to class. Most of them know how to say hello and thank you but not more. So our goal is to teach them as much useful English as we can. However, since we do not have any teaching experience in English at all it was quite hard for us in the beginning. We did not know with what and how to start....so we started with the important things like introducing yourself "how are you", "What is your name", where are you from", etc, the numbers and the colors. This filled our first week.
However, I must admit, teaching is lots of work and very tiring! Standing in front of a class of 30 to 50 kids every day, teaching 6 different classes, entertaining them but keeping them quite all the time takes all our energy. And the heat of about 35 degrees everyday does the rest! But it is great to see how the kids pick up the stuff! And as Michael said before, the kids are so happy to have us teaching them English. You can really see that they enjoy it! Looking at the faces of these kids, seeing them smile and learn is really rewarding after a hard day!
Here are some pictures of our teaching:
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| Joan in action |
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| Equipo de Ingles |
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