The reason why i joined this service in particular is because i believe that children are the future, and i feel that helping nurture children from who come from rough financial backgrounds is an excellent way to make them a vital part of the future society.
First we discussed where our strengths lie, then according to the four ways of service, we went on to formulate questions relating to how we could help the children better, our first few weeks were used to plan and visit the children’s nursery twice. Once to interact more with the kids, and the other to ask important questions to their teachers.
The four ways of service followed were
- Media
- Interview
- Observation
- Survey
In groups, we also noted down our relative strengths and weaknesses, below is a link to the working document
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DvYvcNZYklnHOiwq09aB0G6-eDWC19yaCqgYeIO0vpE/edit?usp=sharing
Here is a picture of the centre visited
Visiting the N2 children at the PPIS centre
Also referring back to the working document, we decided upon people who might hold certain roles such as chair, communications officer and logistics officer. I put myself forward for communications officer because my strengths lie in technology and also photography.
We are planning for the arrival of the kids to our campus in the following months. I am looking forward to it
Somehow its a nostalgic feeling seeing those kids, it reminds me of how i might have been at their age. This service shows me how even us, a small group can make a change in these children’s lives. Helping them grow up like normal children despite their financial background.
The activities which we planned will probably be on my next reflection but for i am only talking about the preliminary things/ ideas we have done/learnt.
So firstly this service helped me realise (up till now) my dtrengths which i thought were passive or not useful or i did not even consider it a strength, for example: speaking different languages, having an interest in computers, got at concentrating. Now previously i did not have any large scale experiences with kids so these strengths helped me scout out possible roles that i could do, for example: photograph and record important parts of the activity, technical help, controlling the kids. One thing that has come to light on the contrary is that after meeting the kids i realised that they do not open up at first, and the problem is that i am very inward myself as well, therefore i would like to improve the ways in which i converse and engage them. Honestly I would like to say that my greatest improvement has been in understanding how a service is planned out and how we can make a difference in the kids’ lives, it has also slightly improved my collaborative skills as well, and my knowledge about the development of young children. Over the weeks, i began contributing more ideas to class and group discussions as i became more well versed with the service, also upon the second time visiting the kids, i was more confident in starting and engaging them in conversation, I believe that the above is evidence of my improvement. I struggled/ still struggle in some area mainly because of my lack of expertise in this type of service, i believe my personality also might have something to do with it
Unfortunately there are no photos of the children at the nursery as they were many other children and teachers present there however we/I am able to click as many photos of them when they start coming to our campus for weekly activities in season 2
#LO1