{"id":39824,"date":"2018-02-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/steps.eliasarndt.de\/die-aufregendsten-zeiten\/"},"modified":"2018-02-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-02-14T22:00:00","slug":"the-most-exciting-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stepsforchildren.de\/en\/die-aufregendsten-zeiten\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201eThe most exciting times of my life\u201c"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Juliane Scheller worked for us as a volunteer at steps for children in Okakarara (Namibia) for two and a half months. The 26-year-old speech therapist from Hamburg vividly describes the experiences and insights she gained during her time with the people in Africa. <\/strong><\/p>\n

So I packed my bag and took a few usual utensils with me, such as a mirror, a hand puppet, feathers, straws and lots of other therapy ideas in my head. Even on the way from the capital Windhoek to Okakarara, I spoke at length with our project manager Sonja about speech therapy. She immediately told and explained quite a lot to me about the project, life in Okakarara and about a boy from the project who would stutter. Meanwhile, during the journey, I kept looking out of the window and saw the fascinating nature of my new temporary home, with its incredible vastness and the odd warthog. Upon arriving in Okakarara, I got to know the other lovely volunteers Tabea, Anne and Paul. I moved into my room, made it cosy and quickly settled into our familiar house. For the rest of the day, the other volunteers told me about their everyday life, the community of 7,000 souls, the warm-hearted project and the children.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After the weekend of my arrival, my work in the project began too. I got to know my new colleagues and the project grounds and, above all, saw laughing and happy faces. After I had spent the first few days in close contact with the teachers, accompanied their lessons and gained an overview of the children's individual areas of development, I then started with individual language support. The focus was, of course, on Namibia's official language, English. They learned vocabulary for colours, days of the week, food, animals and many other helpful English words as well.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The work was fun on both sides, as I quickly noticed, because the children were all committed and proud of their own folders, which we made, labelled with their names and all the worksheets they had worked on and completed. We played games to strengthen the mouth muscles and tongue strength, or blew hard at feathers and small cotton balls. The children had great fun with just a few things and were able to enjoy my language support therapies as a carefree time.<\/p>\n

During my volunteer placement, I was in a different group every day and therefore also had plenty of time for a great exchange with the colleagues. They could tell me important things about the children, the family home and their background. In addition, I was able to ask important questions and support them in the areas of pedagogy and communication. This targeted exchange made the work extremely pleasant and efficient. Most of the time, you learned a lot from one another. Sometimes my colleagues were amazed at how quickly and without much time effort certain things could be done when the problem was communicated clearly, such as questions about documents that could be discussed in just a few minutes. In return, I admired the stress-free calmness of the local educators in some situations, as a certain calmness can be very helpful in many problem-solving processes.<\/p>\n

In the afternoons, the volunteers supervised classes 5, 6 and 7 with their homework. This often led to topics of conversation such as school or university, the role of women, but also contraception and HIV. I was repeatedly made aware of how much responsibility I had and what knowledge and ways of thinking I could pass on to the children for the future. Friendships developed built on a great deal of trust. Twice a week, I sat together with three girls from ninth grade - we did their homework together and talked about important everyday topics. They did not dare to participate in school lessons and to talk to their teachers, because it emerged that they were afraid of authority and therefore preferred not to make any mistakes. It was a long journey for me to understand this behaviour and resolve their blocks, to give them the self-confidence and courage they needed. But by the end of my time in Okakarara, they were clearly daring to hold conversations and ask questions on their own when they wanted to know something. They became more self-confident in dealing with others and were proud to speak English better and better.<\/p>\n

I\"\"During my time as a volunteer, questions regularly arose about life, the individual families, certain social or political structures and some of the children's fates. For all of this, our manager Sonja was always there for me. In every imaginable matter I could count on her support, whether it was visas, doctor visits or simply a few encouraging words when the days were not so bright. It always felt good to know the project management was by your side with an open ear and helping words.<\/p>\n

During my two and a half months at steps for children in Okakarara, I gained extremely varied insights into the lives and everyday realities of children in Namibia, which could hardly have been more different. Children who developed speech impairments such as stuttering due to family difficulties, yet actually communicate so wonderfully. Children who did not dare to speak, although they are actually so brave and strong. Children who could be comforted more than enough by a smile from the person opposite, a sincere hug or encouraging words.<\/p>\n

I am extremely grateful for my time as a volunteer in Okakarara, as it brought me an incredible amount of joy, shaped me in many different ways for life and enriched me greatly. Here's to the successful continuation of the project with happy, healthy and self-confident children.<\/p>\n

Thank you very much for your great work and we wish you, dear Juliane, all the best and continued success on your path!
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Juliane Scheller war zweieinhalb Monate f\u00fcr uns als Volont\u00e4rin bei steps for children in Okakarara (Namibia) t\u00e4tig. Eindrucksvoll schildert die 26 Jahre alte Logop\u00e4din aus Hamburg ihre Erfahrungen und Erkenntnissen, die sie w\u00e4hrend ihrer Zeit mit den Menschen in Afrika erlebte. Also packte ich meine Tasche und nahm mir ein paar \u00fcbliche Utensilien mit wie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,30,34,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-informieren","category-steps-aktuell","category-steps-in-okakarara","category-steps-in-windhoek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stepsforchildren.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stepsforchildren.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stepsforchildren.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stepsforchildren.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stepsforchildren.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stepsforchildren.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stepsforchildren.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stepsforchildren.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stepsforchildren.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}