Friday, June 16, 2006

Game Plan

so here's what i'll be doing, at least according to the ica language school website, which is guatemalaspanish.com :

Walking into the Manuel Ortega girls´ school at recess is like walking into chaos. A welcoming chaos where girls come up to you to say hello, to practice the few English words they know and find out where you are from. ICAmigos volunteers work as teachers´ assistants in classes that have between 45-55 students. They assist in teaching math, geography, history, English and social studies.
ICAmigos became interested in developing an educational project within the city of Quetzaltenango after several years of experience working in the Bilingual Education project. Over the five year period of 1997-2001, we worked in the rural school, San Jose La Viña, which is located just 20 minutes from ICA . It is a school with more than 500 children and they had the opportunity to receive help in the form of math tutors, geography, natural sciences and English classes by way of foreign volunteers. In addition volunteers participated in ecological projects like cleaning up garbage in the community and reforestation. Although we now work in a different primary school, there are students who continue to receive scholarships for study.
The Manuel Ortega school is just a 3 minute walk from I.C.A. and provides volunteers with an experience in the educational field. The school has approximately 400 girls and the majority of families are from the lower class. The ICAmigos projects are organized in such a way so that one project can lend support to others. For example the girls receive the following help from other ICAmigos projects: medical and dental care, theatres and group activities in addition to participating in sporting events. During vacation in November and December the students who graduate from primary school receive an English course to help them in high school.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
We have had contact with an organization in Holland that sends volunteers every year to help in this project.
We have detected and treated a series of health problems with some of the students.
In a series of health campaigns volunteers taught students about caring for their teeth and in general in additional to regular medical visits.

If you like kids then this is a great project to volunteer with!
so there you have it. let's hope i remember how to speak spanish once i get there. let's hope i get better at understanding spoken spanish. let's hope i don't get robbed/murdered. let's hope i have a lot a lot of fun. i bet all of my hopes will come true. let's hope.

Posted by Sarah @ 1:09 AM