Ongoing AfterSchool Tutoring for 70 orphans in BIH

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.