What about the idea of small introduction of EVS volunteers’ home countries in the organisations where they work? :)
With help and support of SPW - we decided to
organize intercultural meetings in every of 3 organizations where there are EVS
volunteers coordinated by SPW. For us, volunteers, it is a chance to do
something together, to practice team work, to have fun together, to get to know
the places where we all work and of course – it is an opportunity to do something nice for the people/clients in
these organizations. The plan was to introduce them something from our cultures
and traditions and educate them a bit in informal way. We decided to prepare for
them some tasks and activities which are both educational and
interesting at the same time…
First intercultural meeting took place on 4th
of March, in Sociotherapy Centre for Youth „Jędruś” (in Jozefów) - which is hosting
organization of Dominik (Czech Republic) and Roman (Moldova). Dominik and Roman -
as EVS volunteers - help there children with their school tasks, home works and
some free time activities.
Children knew in advance that there is “something” going to happen and they were curiously watching us straight after
we entered the building. There was one small girl tirelessly asking: “Did you came for this event, which starts at
four today? “ and “And where are you all
from?” and “Do you speak Polish?” and “What will you do?” and “What will we do?” ...
We arrived earlier – to have enough time to
prepare everything needed, but children started gathering earlier as well :) – event was planned to start at
16:00, but at least 10 minutes to four there were quite some groups of children
already waiting inside the room. And at four – they were completely prepared
to participate :)
In total there were about 45 children attending
this event + some teachers and educators.
At the beginning Dominik told few words about
the meeting so they could understand better what is this event about and then… then it
started...
We showed to children our national flags and
let play some traditional music – country by country – and they had to guess
which countries are we from, find these countries on the map and colour it and
also – they were asked to draw our national flags. The children are really
skilled, they did not even have a problem with drawing the flag of Moldova or Portugal!
Then there was short lesson for practicing our
languages – they learnt how to pronounce one sentence in particular
language and they tried to pronounce it as good as possible. The ones with the
best pronunciation told it then out loud – to the microphone. So there was spoken in
every language sentence with approximate meaning: “From today I will always
listen to the teachers.” (Yes, they knew the meaning and they were pronouncing
it very well.. :) )
Next I taught them one Slovakian dance - so we
danced all together a bit, but soon after – when Roman showed us Moldavian dance - we danced really a lot! It went great, they just loved it and did
not want to stop dancing. After such (long and exhausting - at least for me :) ) dance some
children just stayed sitting trying to catch their breath again - but some of
them very still full of energy to learn Italian song – which our Giorgia choose
and taught them.
Then Dominik prepared small competition – we
named it “bucket challenge” – just, we did not use buckets but smaller cups for this: children were divided
into groups and had to carry water from one cup to another by using the spoons. The important was not only how fast they were but also how much of water they lost while carrying it to another cup. (They tried not to loose of course :)
For the end of the meeting we prepared as well
something from our traditional cuisine – Alisa made tasty German potato salad (Kartoffelsalat)
and I baked some Slovak “pagáčiky” – small cream&cheese salty cookies.
And before children left – they got diplomas for their attendance
at the event and some candies.
We hope and believe that except of having some fun and nice time
children from centre also learnt something – even if it was only a bit – about countries we come
from: Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Moldova, Portugal and Slovakia.
The next meetings in 2 other organisations - Centrum Rehabilitacji, Edukacji i Opieki TPD "Helenów" and Fundacja "Pomocna Dłoń" - will take place in April :)
Comments
Post a Comment