Classes and Cakes
15.03.2011
This week, the help2kids home was happy and peaceful. Everybody now understands their daily routines and knows what to do and when to do it. Our mama’s have done a wonderful job creating a proper timetable for the children and really enforce it well. The children have a few hours of free time between their nap and dinner, so one day we played a football game, another day I taught them how to make paper airplanes, we played with balloons another afternoon, then they received visitors from another orphanage and they all colored together.
These free time afternoons will not be around for long as Desiree and I are beginning to implement fun supplemental education classes in the afternoon. I have created the Pathways Program, where we will be teaching various life skills such as:
- “What I want to be when I grow up”: a series of classes taught by our social worker where we have guest speakers come and explain to the children what they do and how they advanced to that career. We also teach the kids the small steps that they can do now to achieve the goals, such as proper studying habits and the importance of education.
- “Where does my food come from?”: the children will be working with Patrick in the garden, planting their own seeds in the “kid’s” part of the garden, watching them grow and eventually using them to create their own meal which they will cook themselves. They will also help him work in the garden which we use constantly in our kitchen.
- Health classes: since we have such a diverse group of children, we will be having classes explaining HIV, albinism, cognitive and physical disorders, emotional management, how diseases are spread, the importance of personal hygiene, why you should keep your environment clean, etc.. We will be emphasizing the emotional management, using group and individual therapy sessions with the social worker. Our children have come from very traumatic situations and some are having a hard time dealing with the complicated emotions of it all, especially since they are so young. Two of our children have very recently experienced the events which brought them to us, one who lost his mother in the bomb explosions three weeks ago, and the other who’s mother was murdered while she was trying to prevent the child from being kidnapped. Anyone would be traumatized by such horrible occurrences and we feel that it is crucial to provide these children not only with food, medical treatments, and shelter, but also to teach them how deal with their emotional wounds in a healthy and productive manner.
- Art classes: children have a natural tendency to be scared of trying new things which they do not understand. We will be using art classes to also aide their self-esteem. I have written a class where the only way to do well is to try. They will not be allowed to say they cannot do it or ask for help, they will only be asked to try and draw simple shapes such as circles, squares, and triangles. After they are comfortable with this, we will have them draw objects from those shapes (e.g. using a triangle and a square to make a house), again having to try by themselves. We will gradually move to harder and more difficult objects, where we will eventually show them their first drawings and how far they have come simply by trying.
- We taught them their first “What I Want To Be When I Grow Up” class on Thursday. Our social worker, Muhali, gave the children examples of several different kinds of careers (social worker, teacher, pilot, doctor, banker, mechanic, singer, veterinarian, computer engineer, etc.), then went around the room and asked the children what they would like to do and why. We then had them draw pictures of what they wanted to be. Most of the children chose pilot, so we now have a pile of airplane photos. However, Suzie chose doctor and drew a cool picture of herself as a doctor giving shots to “sick kids”. She is one of our older girls and has a very loving and nurturing personality, so I believe that this could become a reality for her one day.
Monday, the 14th of March, was also a very important day here in Tanzania, as well as internationally. That’s right, it was my birthday! I have never had a more adorable celebration in my entire life. What present could be better than hearing some of your favorite little people singing Happy Birthday to you in broken English? The day was filled with cake and games like Hide and Go Seek, the Freeze Game, and Musical Chairs. Christian and Desiree passed out balloons, and we all danced to Shakira and Michael Jackson.
One crazy game of musical chairs!
Freeze!
Thanks for checking in on us here at help2kids in Mbezi Beach, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania! Things are changing everyday, so keep reading the blog to make sure you keep up with all of our adventures!
Cassandra Seidler
Managing Director Orphanage Tanzania