Volunteering

It seems like a natural concept to me, but I've learned that in the villages today the idea of helping someone for the sake of helping isn't easily accepted. That said, my school director insists that we start a service learning program.

I wasn't sure what to do, at first I considered having the ninth or tenth form students work with older villagers. Things like cleaning, repairing, running errands and generally visiting, but then I realized that the elderly people don't need this type of assistance because they all live inside the care of their own family's household. There may be one or two people who live alone and that wouldn't have made much of a class learning experience.

I later decided that the students could work with the opposite population--the younger kids. I did some research about monitoring and the development of Big Brothers/Big Sisters and decided it would be a great opportunity for the older students to feel responsible and empowered and the younger kids could have someone to model and respect.

Fortunately, the PC organizes an annual summer camp for young boys. BRO camp teaches life skills to students over the course of a week. There were a few students who attended from my school and so I rallied them together to give a presentation to their peers about volunteering. I'm hoping that after learning about the benefits and hearing about the new project after school we will get interested students to sign up. After that, and if the project goes well, maybe we can integrate it into a service learning project in health or English class.

Now if only I could come up with a catchy name...