By Adi Salcinovic | Program Manager
Number of volunteer instructors: 20
Average number of beneficiaries during reporting period: 60
Number of workshops held: 4 times a week for three hours
Type of classes held: Intro to Math, English, German, Bosnian, physics, chemistry, Agro & Eco math and extracarricular activities like a handicrafts, jewlery making, information tehnology.
Program Summary:
During this reporting period, the instructions were geared towards helping students prepare for the end of the school year exams while also providing some fun extracurricular activities to balance the stressful period. The attendance was higher than usual as expected due to exams so this posted a bit of a problem managing all students; however, the results were very good based on students grades.
Instructive lessons
Since the beginning of the winter break in January, we have worked together with the beneficiaries who had issues in the first school semester and there were only around ten pupils who had bad grades in mathematics, chemistry and physics and those were high school students. Since the end of January, when the second school semester started, a large number of children and young people attended our afterschool program. We received a large number of applications for mathematics, business mathematics, chemistry, physics and the English and German language. At the end of January, the entire February and March, 59 children and young ones attended our afterschool program. Vijeko, a first year student of the Polytechnic faculty, showed great interest for learning. Vijeko graduated from the Vocational School of Catering and entered college with very little background knowledge and he has put great effort into learning in his first year of studying. He had great difficulties with mathematics and AutoCAD drawing. His lack of knowledge in mathematics stems from his high school education. We spent six hours of afterschool tuition with him every week and he kept practicing on his own for a few hours more afterwards. Proof of this is found in his three full notebooks of practicing mathematics during one month. He is a very diligent student but he has great difficulties with mathematics. Derivates, integrals and testing graphic functions were his greatest trials, but through continuous work with Vijeko we have managed to overcome these difficulties. We saw the first result of our continuous and hard work with Vijeko in March when he passed his first partial mathematics exam with the maximum amount of points, which means that he passed his first partial exam in mathematics and that our time and effort spent with him has shown great results. We had tuition classes with Vijeko three times a week (on Monday, Tuesday and Friday) for three hours in total, which in turn means that we spent 36 hours in a month on Vijeko. Apart from this, Vijeko practiced for two hours every day. Vijeko's statement is truly a motivation for all young people. His diligence is proof that even without previous knowledge results may be achieved with hard work and labour. Vijeko is a good example because he also helped his dorm colleagues with their math homework. Through his studies he acquired different approaches and methods and he showed mathematics to his colleagues in a very quick and effective manner. Around 68 children and young individuals took our afterschool tuition classes in mathematics, physics, chemistry, the English language, the German language and information technology. A few high school students have stood out during the afterschool tuition and among them are Adis, Enisa, Irma and Husejin. They had bad grades in mathematics and chemistry and until March they improved their grades. But a shining beacon for their success was definitely Vijeko.
Creative workshops and IT education
Children and young people from the Zenica orphanage within the After School Programme have the chance to also participate in educational-creative workshops.
From January to March children and young people participated in different workshops which included: decoupage of old items with blankets, drawing on aluminium foil, handmade jewellery. Girls were the most interested ones in these workshops. These workshops were especially important to high-school girls who are grown-up and wish to acquire the skills to make some money on their own. The „Decoupage“ workshop had 14 girls attending of whom five have already mastered the technique and have started to make their own accessory items and to earn their own allowances. The „Drawing on foil“ workshop had 10 girls attending who are diligently following every step and work method and are showing great interest for this technique. the „Handmade jewellery“ workshop has piqued the interest of 13 girls which are very interested in hand-made jewellery and all involved methods shown by experienced volunteers in the field of hand-making jewellery. These 37 girls have for the 8th March, International Women’s Day utilised their acquired skills and made different gift accessories for their teachers and colleagues. Girls have shown great interest for these workshops, which is why we plan to continue them.
Boys were greatly interested in IT workshops in which we taught them basic HTML, PHP and Java programming and how to make their own website using CMS. The IT workshops had 25 boys attending and 15 of them were successful in completing all their tasks in the workshop and achieved basic programming skills. We have achieved a great result were 3 boys created a website on their own for the institution they live in. It was a great challenge for them and they were happy to have been given the chance and use it later on.
Apart from these activities children and young people in the orphanage had the opportunity to participate in English language, German language and Turkish language courses which were held by students and graduates from the Philosophical faculty in Zenica during January, February and March under the aforementioned programme.
Pastime, social events and holiday shows
Apart from after class tuition, educational-creative workshops for children and young people from the orphanage we also organised parties for their leisure.
In January while they had winter break we organised a visit to the theatre and the cinema and in March we organised a party and gave out gift under the educational-creative workshops which we brought to the Home for Retired people were we brought a smile to the ladies for March 8th, International Womens Day. The presents were handed to them by children from the orphanage which they also made. The older ladies in the Home were very pleased and we could also see a few tears on their faces out of happiness and satisfaction. We also organised some music and recitations by the children.
Apart from this we also organised a ceremony for the BIH Independence Day were children received a note about a contest for the best artistic and literary work. The ceremony we prepared for the 1st March started with the hymn and a recitation form a girl from high school and then we announced the winners of the contest. The ceremony lasted for four hours and the children were very satisfied and they had the chance to sing karaoke, dance and play in different educational games with volunteers. The children were very satisfied and we are currently trying to organise a similar party for them weekly.
Achievements in these months:
Plans for the next quarter:
By Adi Salcinovic | Program Coordinator
By Adi Salcinovic | Program Coordinator
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