Fun in February
19.02.2013
Greetings from sunny Dar es Salaam, Tanzania! With the blistering hot weather hopefully drawing to an end soon, the volunteers and staff will be appreciative. The warm days, however have been pleasantly productive and eventful.
The volunteers have been doing a great job with one-on-one tutoring at the children’s home. We are lucky to have enough volunteers right now that the kids are able to get such individual and beneficial attention. Upon arriving at help2kids, most of the children had very little or poor education, setting them a bit behind once in a formal school setting. It is wonderful to see how far they have come and how bright these kids truly are. Even the seemingly minor progressions with tutoring adds up to be big leaps for them academically and socially.
Miri and Kulwa, tutoring one-on-one
One of the older boys, Pius, has been working with our volunteer, Anna, for a couple of months now and she has seen important improvements in his reading comprehension and learning abilities. He had previously missed a lot of school, so this one-on-one time has become vital for him. As with all of our volunteers and the children they are teaching, Anna and Pius are just one example of how the dedication from both child and volunteer along with the undeniable connection being made is creating a steady progression with visible change. He still has a long way to go, but the little victories are exciting to see.
Anna, her son Aron, and Pius
Miri teaching a computer lesson
The volunteers at the Kunduchi nursery school are continuously propelled and committed to the children and giving them the best care they are able to give. We have given the headmaster the funds to build a toilet room there next week, which will be a relief to our volunteers and children—they did not have one there before! The nursery school may not look like much, yet seeing the condition of the school just last year to now is a vast difference. With these sort of little improvements being made gradually, I think it will become a school that the village is proud of and will be a sort of haven for the kids. We aren’t giving them extravagance, but providing basic needs and attention is often enough for a child to feel important and special.
A couple of the children at the Kunduchi nursery school enjoying the jump ropes our volunteer, Raquel, brought for them.
We took the kids to the beach on Thursday as the volunteers usually do, but this was my first time being able to go along. What a fun time! The kids seriously love going and everyone was in good spirits. We have enough volunteers where it’s safe to actually play in the water and splash around in the waves a bit. It is all laughter and smiles. My favorite part was seeing the kids get into their swim gear. With goggles, “swimmies”, floats, and shovels in hand, they were fit for the part and completely adorable. These trips to the beach are good opportunities for the children to get out a bit and enjoy their natural surroundings—it’s pretty fun for the volunteers, too!
I was also able to go to Kawe market with the mamas. This is where they buy the food for the week. I know they eat a lot of food, but this is where I put it into perspective! They obviously have to get a lot for the 30+ children, but they basically filled the van with rice, flour, fruits, vegetables, etc. And the mamas sure know what they are doing—it probably would have taken me half the day to do what they did in about an hour and a half.
One of our volunteers, Eli, on her last week at help2kids
This month we have had to say goodbye to a few of our volunteers, but hello to a couple as well. We appreciate our volunteers’ hard work and commitment and setting the standard for the rest of the year. The rest of February should fade out quietly, and with March comes a bit more activity with more volunteers coming and going.
Until then,
Jessica Isham
Intern at help2kids
