Hi! I'm Paula and I've been in Okakarara for a month (since 19.01.2022). Together with Julius and Johanna, my fellow volunteers, I will work at steps for children in Okakarara for the next six months. Okakarara is a very cozy place. People greet you in the street and ask how you are doing. This makes me feel very comfortable here. The project is also a lot of fun.
Because we work with children and young people between 0 and 19 years old, there is a great variety of ideas and activities that we can implement in the project. I like that the most so far. Every idea you have can somehow be incorporated into everyday life.
At 8:00 a.m. it is time for sports with the young children up to preschool age. They dance to songs, hop, balance, play tag and imitate animals. Every day, a different group has its turn.
When it is breakfast time for the children between nine and half past nine, the three of us volunteers can take a little time to tidy up or plan. We recently received a large donation of books. Last week, we spent our time sorting them by age group, labeling them according to different categories and entering them in lists. Since I was ill recently and am not completely fit again yet, that was already what I did during sports. After breakfast, most of the children have free time to play. When we find the time, we do art with a group. My favorite project so far was when we painted the children's feet in bright colors and then let them run barefoot across the paper.
For Preschool, we are currently reintroducing the Mousebook program:
Every other morning, we work with the preschool children on recognizing patterns and sequences so that they can later develop a relationship with numbers. We started this this week and I find it really exciting to work together with the children and teachers and try out new things.
We use the rest of the morning to prepare our program for After-school-care (ASC) . After the lunch break, the schoolchildren come for homework supervision. We are responsible for the students from 5th grade onward. While one half does their homework, we give the other half tasks we have prepared. They can work towards their 1×1 driver's license or write an essay about where they see themselves in 20 years.
When everyone has finished their tasks, we play together. Sometimes we suggest a game, and sometimes the children can choose something themselves. After tidying up, the popular CookieTime is the final activity. Each child has the chance to earn two cookies if they solve the mental arithmetic problems we set correctly. It is always a very fun way to finish.
We were given a great deal of creative freedom from the very first days. We worked out a lot ourselves and with tips from former volunteers. Looking around gives us even more ideas about how we could shape everyday life for the children. It is simply a lot of fun. I already knew beforehand that there would be a lot of room for creativity in the project, but I am still surprised by how many different directions you can think in here.
Besides childcare, we divided ourselves among the projects Game Preparation, Guest House and Sewing. I am responsible for the latter. At the moment, there is also a lot to do in terms of design: The so-called showroom, where the sewn products are presented, needs to be refitted and restocked. At the beginning in particular, the to-do list seems enormous. Completing it is a lot of fun, though, because I can, for example, design the price tags myself or arrange the products according to my own ideas. After that, precise bookkeeping has to be done to record how many products are still there and what has been sold. Strictly writing down numbers is quite a nice change of pace now and then. In all the projects, we repeatedly have to coordinate with one another, the other teachers and Sonja.
In my opinion, the collaboration works really well, so joint planning and development is a great help. This is also very important because of the language barrier. The kindergarten children can hardly speak any English, and some of the schoolchildren still struggle with it too. As a result, it is sometimes not easy to build a rapport with the children and break the ice. There is always a teacher nearby to provide support, and step by step we can find a way to connect with the children. Overall, I am very happy with the project. It is very diverse and everyday life remains varied. I am already excited to see what kind of development we will be able to see in the children and in ourselves at the end of our stay!
Dear Paula, how wonderful that you are at steps for children in Okakarara and are making a valuable, sustainable contribution through your work on site. We sincerely thank you for your commitment as a volunteer!
