PROJECT/ACTIVITY SHORT DESCRIPTION:
Bakuva is
an association in Bilbao which has a center in Miribilla where children between
the ages of approximately 7 and 16 from families with limited economic means go
to. As a not for profit organization, it focuses on providing a space with
activities for these children whom mostly have immigrant families and therefore
suffer from social exclusion in some aspects of life. My role in this Service
CAS activity is to volunteer at the center once a month. I will be helping them
with homework if they need it, or playing with them, as well as monitoring them
to ensure appropriate behavior, all to make sure they are later capable of
pushing forward out of the situation they are in.
My personal
goal for this activity is to help those in need be providing anything they may
need, whether that may be help with homework or just a hug once in a while to
help them get through something that might be an issue at home. I also want to
give them advice about things that I have learned myself to help them fight for
their dreams and accomplish them. To do this I will answer any questions they
may have as appropriately as I can and also, even though this not might be the
most enjoyable part of the activity, monitor to ensure good behavior as
children in these situations sometimes have violent reactions or bad language
and helping correct that will help be accomplish my goal of contributing to
their social inclusion.
2. Undertaken
new challenges It will be a challenge for me to work with the children
because I don’t know them and it will be difficult to make them feel comfortable
with me. It will also be hard to think about their life conditions and be a
support for them.
4. Worked
collaboratively with others I will be working with other volunteers to
provide the best service for these children as we can as well as the main
coordinator of the association, Angela, who will usually be the one in charge
when we go. She will guide us with the activities and it will be our job to
carry them out appropriately and to meet her standards. We will also be working
with the children, whether it be on the computer, doing homework or playing
cards with them to make them feel comfortable and help them achieve their own
personal goals.
5. Shown
perseverance and commitment in their activities I will go every month for the entire duration of CAS and spend a
considerable time at each volunteering session (2 and ½ hours). I will also put
a lot of effort into cooperating to
6. Engaged with
issues of global importance Poverty
and social exclusion affects a lot of minorities. With all the issues there are
with immigration now, these children are at a disadvantage to push forward in
their lives and I will be part of helping to fight this.
7. Considered
the ethical implications of their actions I will be thinking about how what I do at the center can help them
later at school and in life in general to improve it
8. Developed
new skills I will develop interpersonal
skills working with others.
DURING THE ACTIVITY:
DAY 1: Saturday, November 22nd, 2014 (17:00-19:30)
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| Naroa helping Amahl and Sara |
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| Me working on math with Sara, Amahl and Nuria |
DAY 2: Saturday, December 13th, 2014 (17:00-19:30)
On the way to the centre today, I found that I was excited to see the kids I had met the last time. I found that I cared for them in a way and was hoping to see that spark of joy they had in their eyes last time, despite their situation. When I walked in, Amahl came running over to us and gave us a big hug. It was such a surprise! I hardly even expected her and her friend Nuria to remember us since it had been almost a month since we last saw them. This made me aware of the fact that these children pay attention to every moment. I thought about what their lives must be like at home and realized that maybe they do indeed cherish these moments at the Bakuva centre to help them in their most difficult times. Anyway, we were told that there was an activity planned for that day, that we were going to see a play at a nearby theatre and we were willing to accompany them to it. To get there, we had to walk through their neighborhood, a place in Bilbao, the city I had been too countless times, that I had never seen before. It looked rough, torn-down and not well-kept. The sound of laughter coming from the kids was a paradox in the environment. The play was a puppet show and was a story about trust. This CAS activity, while I was helping others by taking them there, benefited me too in a way. The puppet show made me a bit emotional but not for the obvious reason; it was a small detail that triggered my feelings. The interpreter used a technique of drawing a background and scrolling it around two small posts to make it pass. This was a technique I learned when I was 5 or 6 at school that I had forgotten all about. During a stressful time at school where I feel like I am not doing as well as I should, this small detail brought a rush of memories to me of me at school at that age and served to me as a way to look back and see that I have come a long way from the girl I was ten years ago, the girl who was telling those stories, but that at heart, I am still the same and has lifted my spirits to keep me motivated at school.
DAY 3: Saturday, January 31st, 2015 (17:00-19:30)
Today was not the most productive day I would say at Bakuva. We didn't really interact with the children too much because when we got there, our job was to supervise them playing in a gym we went to near the centre. I was kind of disappointed at first that that was what we had to do because I have grown to enjoy interacting with the children from my past experiences, and felt that by talking to them and playing with them personally, I would gain more understanding about their situation. However, with my experience today, I learned that I can also learn from them by simple observing them. What Isabel and I had to do was pretty much watch them as they played and make sure what they did was fair, no one cheated since this could lead to fights and other behaviour problems. They divided themselves into three groups, some who played soccer, others played basketball and then others who played on the foam matts. I was mostly watching the kids playing basket ball and soccer. One thing that surprised me about how they were playing soccer was that there were three teams who rotated. Usually, or at least in my school, these rotations would be based on something we could measure; either minutes, number of goals.... These kids didn't seem to have a system so I was worried that some would play more than others and that some would get mad because of this being unfair. I talked to Angela, the head supervisor about this and asked if she wanted me to monitor that and she asked "Does it seem to be a problem?" and I answered "Not for now" because it was the truth. Up until then the issue didn't seem to bother any of the kids. So then she told me, "Leave them up to it and let them organize themselves. They have their own system and if it works it works." So I did leave them up to it, but I still kept trying to figure out how they were doing it, but I wasnt' able to even after the whole period. I think it was just based on when a team got tired or felt like they had already played enough and would rotate. I thought of how these children were capable of trusting someone to do the right thing and how in my life, it has always been the opposite; so many things are monitored with numbers (time, turns, goals, money) in fear that the other will always try to take advantage of a situation. These kids taught me a lesson today: that trust between colleagues, friends and teammates can take a the stress of having to control everything off our shoulders.
However, when we got back to the centre,DAY 4: Saturday, March 1st, 2015 (17:00-19:30)
I went to Bakuva with my friend Naroa today and we had a great time. I feel that each time I go, I like it more because I am starting to get familiar with the place and the kids. It feels nice to get there and recognize so many faces and know their names and also to have them recognise me makes me feel more "at home" in this out-of-my-comfort-zone environment. We went to the same gymnasium we went to last time and the kids started playing basketball. They needed one more person to play since they were an uneven number so I decided to play with them. While I was playing, I realized how nice it was to be engaged with kids that come from such a different, more difficult background than me. We were all working together, despite our differences, to reach one simple goal; to get the ball in the hoop. What was once an intimidating challenge for me (to relate and work with kids with a difficult personal life), turned into something that I overcame and I now actually found fun.
DAY 5: Saturday, May 23rd, 2015 (17:00-19:30)
Today was just another day in Bakuva, with pretty much the same people. I like how every time we go, the Ahmal and her friends come running up to us and start hugging us. I like that they do this because sometimes I feel like I'm not very important to them (since some days we just sit around and watch them) but that they do indeed value our presence. This shows me how very different our lives are and that just the fact that they see that we care about them and that we take time to go be with them is something they really appreciate. This got me to thinking about how, these kids who are in bad economic, family and social situations have one thing that a lot of us with busy schedules and a lot of things around us. That thing is the ability to truly appreciate the people around you and I feel like that's something to be learned from this experience. It also got me to thinking about the ethical implications of my actions. When we go there, even though it might not seem to us like we are doing so much, you do see that they get a smile on their face and that they are happy around us so the mere fact of going and helping out which is not that much effort honestly, can brighten up some one's day and that, to me, is priceless.
Something else that I liked about today was when we had to help this little boy with an activity. He was possibly the youngest one there and he wanted Naroa and I to help him make a small boat out of plasticine, a walnut shell and paper. We all worked together to put the plasticine in the shell and then we helped him stick a toothpick in it. Then came the part that was hard for him which was putting the triangle-shaped paper on the toothpick. However, he wanted us to do it on our own boats so that then he could copy it, instead of us doing it for him. This showed be that this little boy really wanted to LEARN how to do this and made me reflect on many aspects of my own personal life. Here was a little boy who was in a bad situation and still had that spark in his eyes of wanting to learn and despite the circumstances, had not given up. That made me think of how many of us who have a lot more to be thankful for spend a lot of time concentrating on the bad aspects of learning (for example at school) and don't truly see the opportunities this has on us. This experience, no matter how small it was, made me appreciate my education much more and has motivated me to work harder at school. It's amazing how much you can learn from constructing a boat out of plasticine with a little boy.
September
October
November
December
Saturday, January 20th, 2016
Today I experienced something that shocked me at first but then actually made me sad. These kids returned to the centre and joined some others who had stayed. All of a sudden one of the boys who had been playing soccer was on the floor crying, with a bloody nose. He had been punched by another boy, but everything happened so quickly that no one was able to stop a fight. I was scared at first because I had never seen a fight like that between such young people but then sad because the kid said he was scared to go home now, that he might get punched again. It was sad to see that trust I have seen between the children before, who were friends and had been there at Bakuva for a long time together, children whom I'd seen playing peacefully on the soccer court completely fade away to fear because of a violent act promoted by the environment these children have to grow up in.
February 27th
AFTER THE ACTIVITY:
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