Ongoing AfterSchool Tutoring for 70 orphans in BIH

BOSANA FOUNDATION

After School Program Report

April – June 2018

Number of volunteer instructors:20

Average number of students:59

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 handicrafts, jewelry making, information tehnology.

Program Summary:

During this reporting period, the instructions were geared towards helping student prepare for the end of the school year and their 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

During the months of April, May and June there was a great interest of young people and children for afterschool classes. In total, 59 children and young people went to afterschool classes which had issues with mathematics, commercial mathematics, physics, chemistry and the English and Turkish language. Afterschool classes were taken by 32 elementary school children, 21 high school children and 5 college students. It is a great feeling to see students, whom you have helped and taught successfully over the years, finish a 4-year high school and enter college.
These students have also learned and transfered their knowledge to other children and help them. Positive examples are Enida and Halima who have finished their high schools last year and have enrolled in college. Enida enrolled in Turkish Language and Literature Department and Halima has enrolled in German Language and Literature Department. They have passed all their exams by the end of June and at the same time when we were teaching them, they also helped and taught other children. Enida had minor difficulties in studying for the Turkish language exams but we had an instructor helping her so she overcame these difficulties very quickly. Halima had minor difficulties with Phonetics and Phonology of the German Language, but with practice and studying together with our instructor she overcame these difficulties. Both students have long attended our Afterschool program that has helped them over the years and now in college as well. It necessary to point out that during these three month of after school classes the beneficiaries, especially high school students, were very interested in learning and they sought to receive as much tutoring as possible.

Creative Workshops, IT Education and Young People's Activism

Beneficiaries from the orphanage, within the Afterschool Program, this quarter also had the chance to enter educational and creative workshops.

In addition to class activities and school, it was also a pleasure for girls and boys to relax and express their creativity through creative and IT workshops.

The most interest was shown for the Drawing on Film workshop which is a very inspirational and creative workshop. About 20 girls and 10 boys participated in the workshop from April to June. The participants mastered the drawing on film technique from a professional artist with five years of experience with this technique. The girls made two pieces of art for themselves. In addition to the Drawing on Film workshop, 17 girls participated in the decoupage workshop where they expressed their creativity and made a few excellent pieces of art.

The beneficiaries also had a chance to show their capabilities and learn something new in IT by having a chance to learn basic programming in HTML and Java.

The interest from girls and boys for IT and after these three months still persists so we plan to continue in the upcoming quarter. The results are apparent and a few of them have created their own basic website in HTML.

In addition to the aforementioned activities, the beneficiaries from the orphanage had the chance to participate in English, German and Turkish language courses led by college students and graduates of the Philosophical faculty of Zenica.

Additional workshops that were organized were also on subject of youth endorsement, activism and social responsibilities. Topics included:

Get to know each other: The workshop included working on having respect for others and oneself and teamwork. Beneficiaries took part in various games where young people may participate in a fun way and contemplate about respecting themselves and others.

Where to: The aim was to acquire valuable information about what is important in order to achieve one's goals, why sometimes we are unsuccessful and how to turn the situation in your favor. There is no magic wand and the road to success is neither easy nor fast and with proper coordination the participant of this workshop will reach their goals.

How to learn without pain: The workshop is laid out to allow all young people to analyze their learning styles, to find out which suits them best and allows their learning to be the most effective. The aim is to teach them the basics of learning and present them with a mass of useful information on the learning process. Twenty-five young people participated in these three workshops after which they broadened their knowledge and views and were very satisfied with such a form of education.

Entertainment, Meet-ups and Performances for Holidays

Apart from the afterschool classes, educational and creative workshops, we also enabled children from the orphanage to entertain themselves and have fun.

In the month of April we organized two meet-ups for children at “City park” where we played basketball and football with them. And we also went to the mountain camp site “Vlasic” during one weekend. The 1st of May was special in that we invited all those children and young ones who had no family to spend the holiday with to spend the day with us grilling and entertaining ourselves.

In the month of June we organized a large “iftar” or breaking of the fast during the month of Ramadan They said that they had great fun and that they are glad to be invited to break fast with us because they enjoyed the homemade food and the beautiful atmosphere. After Ramadan, we also organized Eid celebration where we organized a meet-up with appropriate music and karaoke, pastry and many educational games.

Achievements in these months:

• Free time used productively through creative and IT workshops
• Talents were exposed in workshops
• Children removed from the streets
• High interest of children to regularly do homework, study and learn
• High school student, now a college student
• Boys and girls showed great interest towards IT
• Children are now apt to perform hands-on work skills they acquired in the workshops

Plans for the future month:

• Instructional lessons, following the success of the children in school an assisting them
• Foreign language learning
• Children acquiring the skills to be self-sufficient
• Educational and strengthening the children's home children
• Creative workshops, quizzes
  

BOSANA FOUNDATION

Afterschool Program

January – March 2018

Number of volunteer instructors:17

Average number of students:60

Number of workshops held:4 times a week for five hours  

Type of classes held:Intro to Math, English, German, Bosnian, physics, chemistry, Agro & Eco math and extracarricular activities like handicrafts and IT.

Program Summary:

During this reporting period, the instructions were geared towards helping students prepare for the end of the first semester exams while also providing some fun extracurricular activities to balance the stressful period. The attendance was higher than usual as expected due to the exams so this posted a bit of a problem managing all the students; however, the results were very good based on students grades. 

Instructive lessons
In January, February and March we held instructions in subjects like math, physics, chemistry, economic mathematics, accounting, English language and German language.
In the month of January during the time of winter break many kids and teenagers who attend our programspent their time in orphanage so we worked hard to organize educational- creative activities for them. During the winter break we organized classes for kids who want to study subjects they want to improve and subjects where they needed to improve their grades. Many students who attend last year of high school signed up so they can prepare for universities. Adisa M. is a third grade student in Ekonomska škola, she works really hard and in the future she wants to enroll at the University for Economics. She said that she is really happy for having us and by us she means this After School program. In February and March our volunteer Tajra K. was the most active volunteer and she worked with kids and teenagers by holding extra lessons and help with homework. In February and March many middle school students signed up for courses, especially graduates who want to enroll in good high schools and later good universities. For the instructions in mathematics, chemistry, physics, economics and accounting, there was a great interest among high school students. For these three months, we would especially like to set apart Adisa M., high school fourth grade student and Samir A., who goes to economics high school who showed most persistence for learning and gaining knowledge. Samir passed first term with very good average, and he said he was just one point away to pass with the excellent average. During the winter break, he decided that he was not going anywhere, but he would practice math and physics from which he had poor grades. His desire is to have a more successful in the second semester to enroll in the university. During the winter break and in February and March we were practicing with him twice a week. Samir already showed improvement in March and he received an A for mathematics and physics.   With this, he showed himself and us that everything can be done when you really want it. In February and March, 60 students attended our instructions, out of which 38 were elementary school students, 20 high school students and two university students.

Kanita D., who is senior in high school showed also great achievement and interest. She regularly attended instructions in accounting, bookkeeping and economic mathematics. In addition to taking part in our courses, she also helps those who are younger during our instructions, especially during the exams season. We consider this very useful and we are very proud of her because we see great improvement after three months of instructional classes.

Creative workshops, informatics seminars and youth activism

During this quarter, every weekend we held creative and educational workshops. About 60 beneficiaries attended our various workshops.

Since January, we have introduced HTML, CSS, PHP and Java programming, and ten children have been interested and started to attend these courses. We also continued the Robotics Workshop for girls who were interested. Ten of them attend a robotics workshop twice a week where they are progressing and building their competencies day to day.

In addition to the robotics workshops, 10 girls were interested in the workshops of drawing creations on foil and silk. We have two girls Sajra and Adelisa who have finished high school and have not enrolled to any university. They are very interested in these techniques and all they have learned they applied practically and have a couple of excellent works behind them. Through educational seminars and creative decoration workshops, drawing on silk and foil, programming, robotics workshops, German language, guitar lessons and workshops, we want to help our beneficiaries get to know themselves better and their skills. Our goal is to encourage children and young people at the orphanage to be socially beneficial, vigorous young individuals and eager to make their own efforts and with hard work to achieve success in their lives.

Parties and social events

In January, during the winter break, we organized a couple of parties where children had the opportunity to sing karaoke, play an instrument and play social games. On the 1st of March, BIH Independence day, we organized a party and a whole day hang out with sweets and cakes where the guardians from the orphanage with our help made a small show with poems about Bosnia and Herzegovina. On March 8^th, International Womens’ Day, we made greeting cards and cakes that we took to elderly ladies at a local retirement home. This was a huge surprise for them and made them very happy.

In addition to celebrating these holidays during the months of January, February and March, we made various social gatherings and activities for children and young people.

Achievements in these past months:

• Children removed from the streets
• High interest of children to regularly do homework, study and learn
• Free time used productively through creative workshops
• Talents were exposed in workshops
• Girls showed great interest towards IT
• Children are now apt to perform hands-on work skills they acquired in the workshops

Plans for the next quarter

Plans for the upcoming quarter is to continue organizing fun activities while also preparing them for the next exam season, the end of school year. We will help university students to prepare for their exams and entrance exams while also helping all other students with poor grades to improve their outcomes.