The hospital construction project: The last few days, we’ve been working on a painting project over at the Hospital. Right now we’ve only applied the primer; however we should be painting more within the next week or so.
Octavia weight: Just the other day, Mary and Shawney had the opportunity to go over to Octavia Weight and coordinate arts and crafts for the folks there. They all seemed to really enjoy being creative and working on their painting and drawing skills. After, Mary and Shawney went with the Octavia Weight director and brought a bunch of food to elderly people who live in San Ignacio.
Orphanage: On Monday and Wednesday, Kristen, Sarah, Whitney, Shawney, Lisa, Nataya, Melissa and Chris all traveled to Belmopan to start our work with the Orphanage there. On Monday we all put together some games for the children in a park nearby. While some were playing a game of soccer with Chris, Sarah, and Whitney—others were playing “ red light green light” with the girls, or other fun games like “down by the banks” and the “human knot”. All the children there are just so sweet and loveable. There ages range anywhere from 4 months to 18 years, with such different interest. On Wednesday we only got to play a few games before our stay was cut short due to a 2 O’clock meeting most of us had to attend with the George Price Organization for some upcoming projects.
Conflict Resolution: Today, Sarah, Nataya, and Chris all met with 3 members of the Peace Corps who we will be working with on our new project of a conflict resolution camp that starts this coming Monday. We all were really impressed with the structure that the camp will have, as well as how it will be run, and the activities we will be doing in order to teach different ways to resolve conflict. The camp will run for 2 weeks, and we are anticipating a group of about 30 kids all between the ages of 8-11. Each day is planned out in which we focus on a certain part of resolving conflict. For example, day one is about “Creating a positive Identity” day two “Belonging and cooperation” Day three, “setting goals” etc. Our roles in helping on this project will be leading the certain activities, applying and teaching certain aspects we find useful in resolving conflict, and also just managing the class as a whole. All of us were really impressed with the layout that the Corps had already made, and have high hopes for this upcoming project.
Square Foot Gardens- A new project was proposed Sunday night at our project planning meeting, and we have all voted and decided on further pursuing this project of Square foot gardening. Steph stepped up as the team lead for this project and has already started her first “pilot garden” at a house here in San Ignacio. Their hope is to help improve the local’s health by making it more affordable and easier to access fresh vegetables, such as cabbage, tomatoes, radish and sweet peppers, etc. They hope to have one or more gardens underway in the next couple weeks.
This week we were sad to see Ben and Marissa go home. However, in the short time they were here, they started a Money Management and Business Skills class. Calvin and Cydnee have taken over their positions as Project leads. It has been noted that there is a lack of money management skills among the people of Belize. Most of the citizens in the country are literate, most having graduated from high school and many attending college. There are many opportunities for employment in private business and public service. Many people have access to loans from banks and credit unions. However, with all of these opportunities many people are living day-to-day and do not have the training necessary to budget and to save. Due to this lack of training, many never accumulate wealth. There are many entrepreneurs, but many have little success due to lack of training on basic business skills. This week Calvin, Cydnee and Whitney were able to organize classes and logistics. We anticipate starting classes mid July at the George Price center.
Soilet: The Soilet has been taking off this last week. We have started construction at the new site on Bullet Tree at an Elementary School. We spent most of the week gathering supplies, cutting wood and digging for worms! We anticipate starting construction soon at our Duck Run location. Most exciting though is the use of our Pilot Soilet at Parrots nest. It currently houses 218 worms, waste and more to come!
Leadership Seminars
The future of tomorrow is in the hands of today’s youth. It is vitally important that we equip today’s youth with tools to help them become positive influences in the communities in which they live. Youth today face challenges unique to their generation. With the negative influences of the media, drugs corroding the communities in which they are introduced, and limited supervision at home; it has been necessary more than ever that youth learn principles to lead and create positive change in the world in which they live. Their futures can be bright if they are prepared and equipped with tools to help them achieve success. The aims of our project are to aid tomorrow’s future in acquiring leadership tools to help them obtain physical evidences of their great potential and help them lead positive initiatives in their communities. This week we were able to organize classes and organized logistics of how everything will run. The volunteers helping on the project are Calvin Skinner, Cydnee Haws, Whitney Fullwood and NaTaya Stewart
English Teaching:
Shawney and NaTaya volunteered to take over a nighttime English teaching class at Corner Stone. This week they have been working on teaching current students sentence structure and negatives. It is sometimes slow moving but the students say they really benefit from our teaching and even though it’s late, give it their all. We are excited to see their progress as the classes continue.
George Price Center Literacy
This week was our first big meeting at The George Price Center concerning the Literacy Class. Mary, Katie, Shawney and Sarah will be involved in team-teaching Literacy everyday for the next two weeks in the city of Belmopan. At the meeting today they were given their responsibilities and the break down of the lesson plan. The two-hour session will be broken down into spelling, reading fluency, reading comprehension, reading aloud, arts & crafts and games. They will be teaching high school students and 5-8 year olds reading skills. After the meeting we all are pumped and ready to start helping out in Belmopan.
School Painting
Along with our current projects, we sometimes offer to help those who have helped us. Richard, a partner who has been so kind to share his tools with us, needed help on painting a local elementary school. We worked on it for two days priming and painting. It is always nice to give something back and in this case it happened to be our labor.
Let the good times Roll....
Trying out new hair styles
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