You should now have a fair indication of where your activity process is going. You are preparing to conclude and end your process. Reflect on the implications: What impact did this experience have on you, on the community and on the organization. In the second question reflect on how you used the theory on PAR and evaluation to analyse the outcomes of the planned activities.
This experience did impact me greatly. I don't feel like a new person. I feel like I've seen the problems at home magnified. I feel like the same problems affect poor people all over the world. I feel like the poverty here is the same as the poverty in my hometown. It makes me want to go home to the poor communities where I already know the culture. It makes me want to go into the Hmong and Cambodian communities at home, and work with people there. South Africa is not my country. South Africa is big and unfamiliar even after 3 or 4 months. My county at home has 17% unemployment rates right now. We still have the highest concentrated poverty in the country. The farms are in draught. I need to go home. They need good community development there. As a Fresnan, as a Californian, I have more of a place there.
This experience affected the community of Kayamandi/Ikaya Primary School is small but significant ways. I was present for a lot of students. I heard a lot of students' stories. I came, and I saw. I experienced. I think that that is more important to me, but it does make a small impact on these students as well. I think that the afterschool program does make a tangible difference in their lives, because they get focused attention, and they get to be special. The grade 8 helpers remember their fun times in the program like it was yesterday. They miss last year's volunteers and talk about them all the time. I think our grade 7 students will feel the same about us, when we are gone.
My contribution to ISOS-Kayamandi is not too significant. It is structured so that all valuable contributions are used. I feel like I influenced the program, but alongside many other people. I think that I learned a lot from ISOS-Kayamandi that I will use in future afterschool or summer programs with kids.
Carefully read the instructions about the theme for this week's journal, before attempting this question. (these instructions are available on the journal webpage and above. Question 1: Using the DEAL model of reflection and the critical incident approach, describe the most important activities and interactions (incidents) during your service at your site of placement today (this week), as it relates to the theme of this particular journal. Why was it important? How did you feel during and after the incident(s) and why did you feel that way? (See identifiable feelings tabled below). Also describe any other feelings or reactions you experienced at your placement site today (this week).
On Monday night, we had our feedback session, which was my mini-project aside from the weekly work with the children in the afterschool program. I am proud of the way that it worked out. I began with a focus session with the grade 8 helpers. Mike had correctly predicted that it would be difficult for the girls to say anything negative about the program structure or the volunteers. I taught them the phrase constructive criticism as part of our exercise, but I'm not sure they understand the 'critical' part of the phrase, even now. I did get a lot of useful advice out of them, eventually. When it was time for the big meeting with all the volunteers, the grade 8s did want to speak in front of everyone. They said all the positive things that we had talked about. They let me say the negative things. They did really good. I think the volunteers were really receptive, too.
The top 5 lessons for the volunteers were:
1. Talk slower, and repeat yourself if we don't understand the first time.
2. Be creative and interesting in the ways that you engage with the learners.
3. Talk to the learners as much as possible, about anything, just talk.
4. We want to be your friends, the learners want to be your friends, try to open up and be our friends.
5. We really appreciate what you do
I am realizing more and more that all of the kids really do crave relationship. As time goes on, and my face is seen consistently every week, they are beginning to open up to me and share their stories. I think that this is the biggest impact that I could ask for in these children's lives. Its also the biggest impact that ISOS could ask for, too. (the girls do swear that their English is infinitely better because of afterschool programme, so that's good affirmation as well). Its really hard though, because every story is a new and unique variation on heartbreak.
I sat in the back of the room with Siphomandla (gift of strength) and another boy as we were writing articles about how they had spent Easter Holiday. The other boy wrote about getting to visit his father in Gugulethu, which doesn't happen very often. He got to ride the train. He got to see his friends in Gugulethu, he got to go to the beach, all sorts of exciting things happen when he gets to see his dad. Siphomandla says something under his breath about his dad that I don't quite catch. I tell him to write it down as a part of his article. He writes "I wish I could go visit my dad. I have never met him since I was 2 months old and my mother left him in Gauteng". Oh, Siphomandla. There were tears in his eyes. And I was powerless to do anything other than affirm how badly that sucks. I felt so powerless, but also privileged to hear a bit of his story. He usually doesn't talk very much.
I think another child in the program is being abused. I don't know what to do about that either. I was talking to Katie, and part of her Prochorus Resource Binder is a sheet of signs to look for. This boy, he has a lot of those signs. He's usually pretty quiet, or at least he doesn't ever speak English very loudly. He can scream Xhosa quite well. Everyone picks on him; I think it is because his immediate response is to punch them. At first, I felt like I was always getting him in trouble, because he was always fighting with other boys. I started to play closer attention, and I realized that the boys would poke or prod or lightly punch him until he punched back. The girls will tease and make fun of him until he responds. It's not okay. I've talked to him a million times about how violence is not okay. I've intervened in specific confrontations, and made the girls apologize for calling him __________(Zulu, Zimbabwean, the super dark-skinned skinny looking tribal man in the magazine). I've made him apologize for hitting. I've separated him from the table he was fighting with. I've even threatened to drop him out of the program. Andy sent him home early on occasion. He hit someone else in the classroom on Tuesday. I took him outside and talked to him a little bit. He didn't really talk. He looked stonily out at the distance, wouldn't look at me. I told him I wasn't going to yell at him, I just wanted to know what was going on. I let him sit for a while, asked a few more questions about what had just happened. He didn't respond. I asked a few questions about his home. I asked if he lived with his mother, he shook his head no. I asked if he lived with his father, he nodded. I asked if he had brothers, he shook his head no. I asked if he had sisters, he put up three fingers. He then starts crying. Not sobbing, but the tears that he's been fighting to hold in, the whole time he's been looking stonily, those tears just come pouring down his face. I ask a few more questions that he doesn't really answer. I let him sit there and finish crying. I ask him if he wants to get a drink of water first, or he wants to just go back in. The only time he says anything is "water". He washes off his face, drinks some water, and then goes back into the classroom. I don't see him punch anyone else the rest of the time we are in the classroom.
As the program comes to an end for this semester, I wish that I could somehow tell the new group of volunteers everything that I have learned about each of the students. I wish that they wouldn't have to waste 2 months of getting comfortable. In Young Life, we have a saying that you have to earn the right to be heard. The new volunteers do need to earn the trust of these kids, because they have so few dependable trustable people in their lives. The students are smart to keep so much hidden. They cannot live any other way. I wish that I had more time with them, even though I am so ready to go home. I don't know how much more I could hear and be powerless to do anything about.
Question 2: This question relates back to your knowledge base (prior knowledge and experience, course readings and current research you undertake) and how this helps to inform you to understand your answer in the previous question. The instruction for this question is therefore to 'step back' from your experience and analyze as objective as possible the reasons for your feelings during the experience at the site. Relate experiences and observations to specific concepts and theories you learned in class or in classes prior to coming to South Africa. (Use the theme and specific readings referred to in the description of this journal on the journal web page as guideline.
In the second question reflect on how you used the theory on PAR and evaluation to analyse the outcomes of the planned activities.
I think that I used the theories of PAR pretty well in my group training/feedback session on Monday night. The volunteers and Grade 8 helpers both got to co-create the training material that will be used for next semester's volunteers. The time I spent with the grade 8 girls was especially helpful for me and empowering for them. Because I came up with the idea, it wasn't completely participatory. They did identify the need for volunteer training during an earlier conversation where we discussed their roles in the after school program. I guess that could be problem formulation. The capacity building of the volunteers and grade 8 helpers is important for the program. It does help support the efforts of the afterschool program to further its work in the community. My focus session focused on the need for volunteer training. If I was just working with the small group of concerned grade 8s, I'm not sure that that would be the focus of our community development efforts. I don't think that's what would happen with my Participatory Action Research. I think that I have been good at developing a democratic and trusting relationship with the grade 8 helper girls. I learn a lot from them, and listen to what they have to say. They know this. I think that it was empowering for the girls to hear their opinions shared to a large group of volunteers. It was also empowering for the girls to hear the volunteers share their opinions about the volunteers' own perceptions of the volunteers. I think that the conscientization process was most evident in my work with the girls. I think that they learned about the process as well.
If I was to stay in Kayamandi, and do PAR or other methods of community development, I would want to focus on abuse. I know that Prochorus does some work in this area, and I'm sure other NGOs do too. I would want to use the girls' experiences and see how PAR could help them. I've heard too many stories now.
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