Ongoing AfterSchool Tutoring for 70 orphans in BIH

BOSANA FOUNDATION

After School Program Quarterly Report

April – June 2014

Number of volunteer instructors: 5

Average number of students: 44

Number of workshops held: 3 times a week for two hours  

Type of classes held: Intro to Math, English, German, Bosnian, physics, chemistry, Agro & Eco math and extracarricular activities like a handicrafts, jewlery making, guitar and piano lessons.

Program Summary:

During this reporting period, the instructions were geared towards helping student 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.  

Program Activities in this quarter:

Since the month of May is full of final exams, the children at the Zenica orphanage expressed interest and need for the instructors to come more often than usual and to stay longer. The instructors agreed and made a committment to help them succeed during the exam period. 

The program also focused on building students self-confidence during the exams because a lot of them felt that they could not pass their exams, that they were not smart enough. The volunteers worked extra hard with those students to make sure that they build the confidence because thats half the work.

Finally, the students of our afterschool program were very active during the devastating floods that hit our country back in May and June. Since the displaced families who lost their homes in the floods were placed at the college dorms right by the orphanage many for the week that they did not go to school went every day to help distribute food, helped get more food donations and play with the children of the families. They did their best to contribute and help others as well.

Towards the end of the quarter, we focused mainly on helping students with math to prepare them for the exams. This is the biggest challenge to get the students to learn and improve their math. For those that already had good grades, we cotinued fun activities that we know children liked, like jewlery making, handcrafts, guitar lessons, etc.

Noticable Improvements:

Most importantly, childrens' behavior has improved and their interest to come to our afterschool program even when they do not need so much help. We achieved this by including more fun activities and rewards for those that come and have good behavior.

One particular student had his books stolen and came to speak to our instructor because he could not study without them. He tried borrowing books but by the time his friends used them for their studies it was already late in the evening and he could not finish his homeworks. Our Project Manager managed to get him new books and the student showed his sincere appreciation and drive to learn by coming and staying longer than others. He kept asking for more homework so that he would make up the lost lessons that he was not able to study without books. He even started a separate notebook with new English words to make sure he remembers them and memorizes them.

Worth mentioning are results of two students who started very badly at the beginning of the year and now finished the school with very good grades. Not only that they received good grades in math but they have built confidence, they now enjoy resolving math problems and come to do additional practice. Their confidence is priceless.

CHALLENGES:

There are no serious challenges to report as students are showing great progress in school, interest in extracurricular activities and their behavior has drastically improved.