Author: Paul Williams
Placement: 4 weeks at placement 0120
Period: May
2006
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I have just returned from 4 weeks and I am finding it very quiet back in London! I had a great time while I was out there. The kids are incredible, so interested in the volunteers and full of fun. Jayaliila is a wonderful host. The food was amazing and she made me and the other volunteers feel very welcome. I personally enjoyed the challenge of teaching the kids and I found the best approach was to get stuck in to anything that needed doing. I was there with Lara, from Germany, and for some of the time with Gretchen from the US. Together we did a variety of things including playing with the kids, teaching classes when teachers were absent, giving the kids revision lessons, painting the school and we tried (with varying degrees of success!) to introduce a timetable giving the students set lesson and break times. Currently there are four classes, but there have recently been a lot of changes in the teaching staff. Jayaliila has had lots of problems finding reliable teachers and volunteers come in very useful to fill in the gaps! I would say to future volunteers that they need to come prepared to be proactive. Do not expect to be told what to do. There is no volunteers' schedule or timetable and no set tasks that the volunteers do. You just do what you can/want to. This allows enormous scope to get involved, but also means you will be left on the sidelines if you don't take the initiative yourself. Building work on the new classrooms started while I was there, but has now stopped as the money has run out. In my opinion one of the single biggest benefits the school could receive is for these new rooms to be finished. Currently two classes have classrooms and two are taught on the verandah. This is too overcrowded and too noisy for the kids to concentrate and learn well. I would therefore advise future volunteers thinking about what to bring that cash is pretty must the most useful thing you could provide! In terms of other gifts to bring for the school, I would say that volunteers should bring specific items that they plan to use. The school actually has quite a lot of books, games for kids and some craft materials, but the teachers there don't know how to use them. If you are going to take something, think about how it will be used or it will just sit in a cupboard! The school is just about to break up for a few week's holiday. The new term will start again in September. Good luck to future volunteers! Hopefully I will be a volunteer here again in the future!