Here Am I: Forward Education

For the past week or so I've been able to go to two different Care Centres in Masoyi (Lula, and K2) and be involved with the Forward Education program, with Carley and Alexa who are two of the volunteers from the UK. Its been really nice to get involved with something finally! Plus, we even have our own special Forward Education t-shirts ;)

The program is basically an after school program for students in grade 7-12, to do homework, learn life skills, and just give them the motivation and skills in order to graduate and pursue their goals and career. The program was set up and organized extremely well by some previous volunteers/Hands staff, but since them everything has kind of fallen apart. Along with little organization or structure, some of the younger grades are now also being included (grade 4-6), which makes it difficult for Nobile (the woman in charge of the program in both care centres) to teach the older ones.

What we're doing is that Carley and Nobile (no idea how to spell it, I apologize! Its said Noh-bee-lay... with a click at the beginning) are taking the older ones, grade 7-11, and giving them a structured two(ish) hour program, with lessons, homework time etc. Meanwhile, Alexa and I are taking the younger ones, and supposedly doing the same thing with them, only on their level.

Yesterday however was the first time we split up, and it wasn't quite how I pictured it. By the time we finished we had double the amount of children we started with (including a few grade 2 students, who knew almost zero English) and at the end they kids just left when they felt like it. Its going to be a bit of a challenge to actually do something productive with them! A lot of the older students in our group however, seemed to really enjoy it, and actually got something out of it; several of them were saying, "That was so fun!" as we left, which was nice to hear :)

I don't have any pictures of the F.E. program yet, but here are a few pictures of my last time at Lula.. I got a bit caught up in the baby house, and didn't end up joining Alexa and Carley with the older students until about half an hour before the end :S But really, those little ones are just too cute to resist!!