Volunteer Update

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25TH

I’ve now had almost two weeks to adjust to my new volunteer schedule, so I wanted to give a quick update as to how things are progressing thus far. First, things with the orphanage are going extremely well, although to be honest there isn’t a lot to report at this point. Working with the kids has been great, and for better or worse, I have now added both changing a poopy diaper and getting spit up on to my life resume. From a fundraising perspective, I have developed a project plan for my assessment, and have begun researching best practices and reaching out to friends for additional materials. I will begin analyzing historical donor data from the orphanage in the next week or two, with the hopes of compiling my recommendations by the end of the December so we can begin the implementation phase in line with the new year.

Teaching, in contrast to my work at the orphanage, has been much more challenging, although I definitely enjoy it and do not regret my commitment to the Umoja Centre in the least. There are two main difficulties that I am currently encountering. The first is the language barrier. Most students could only speak and understand the most basic sentences in English when they began taking classes at the center last April, and while their progress has been remarkable, it can still be a significant obstacle at times. This is especially true for the beginner class (there are two separate classes – beginner and intermediate – each comprised of 20 students), where not only do they have a more difficult time understanding, but are also more hesitant to raise their hands and ask for clarification when they don’t comprehend something. While this challenge is by itself difficult to overcome, it is greatly exacerbated by the other problem, which is the lack of resources with which I have to teach – namely, a projector. So not only do students not always understand what I’m saying, but when I want to visually demonstrate how to do something (a method that is extremely effective in teaching Excel) I have to either show them individually on each computer, or attempt to draw a picture of the spreadsheet on our whiteboard – a poor substitute, to say the least. Additionally, I don’t have a textbook for myself, let alone the students, and printing out my own lesson plans everyday for the students to follow along with just isn’t a feasible option.

NOTE: I don’t want to give a false, overly-negative impression of the organization or the resources at our disposal. The Centre opened its doors only this past April, and the programme director, Caroline, has done a remarkable job in obtaining funding for the most critical resources, including but not limited to the actual facility itself, all classroom and office furniture, computers, snacks for students (who often don’t even have the money to afford three meals a day), and perhaps most importantly, student sponsorships to pay for ongoing education for those students who successfully complete the program and are then able to go back in secondary school or are able to go into some sort of vocational training. (It's also worth pointing out here that I misunderstood the details of the program at the Umoja Centre initially, and therefore incorrectly described it in my email and blog post. Please see the note at the beginning of my post from Nov. 22nd entitled "Volunteer Activities" for the correct details of the program)

So, in spite of these challenges, there is some good news on the horizon. In addition to my teaching and lesson planning, I have also been using my business background to fill out a rather technical application for a grant for which Caroline has been told she will definitely qualify, provided the application is correctly filled out and submitted. Caroline has promised that she will earmark a portion of that money for a projector and screen, which means my biggest resource deficiency will hopefully be addressed by the time students come back from their holiday break in January.

In the meantime, I have come up with some alternative teaching methods that I will experiment with in the next two weeks. First, I have created an Excel workbook that contains instructions for everything that has been taught up to this point, and will be putting a softcopy of the document on each student computer so they can use it as a sort of ‘virtual textbook’. If this works well, I will continue to update the workbook with each subsequent lesson. Second, I am also going to be using a more activity-based approach to teaching Excel. I had planned to create and use activities from the onset, but what I am going to specifically try and attempt that differs from my original plan is to use these activities not just to review things we have already learned in class, but also to introduce new concepts. My thought is that this might lessen the language barrier difficulties by giving the students written instructions (again, via an Excel file) and letting them figure some things out for themselves through experimentation, rather than putting the entire burden on me to try and clearly explain everything in a way in which they will completely understand. I’m not entirely sure it will work out, but I can always go back to my first approach if it doesn’t.

And just as a final endnote, despite all the challenges, hardships, and hard work, I am absolutely loving my time spent volunteering at both the orphanage and the Umoja Centre.