Limpopo Meeting Reflection 21 – 11 – 13

Limpopo Meeting Reflection 21 – 11 – 13

            In todays Limpopo meeting, 21 November 2013, the AISJ students discussed our plans for the upcoming year 2014. The written stories from the born-free Limpopo students will be evenly distributed between all of the AISJ students. The AISJ students will take the stories home over the December Break to edit. Editing will consist of shortening their stories and highlighting their born free idea more instead of their life stories, punctuation, spelling, and grammar.

            The AISJ School will sponsor fundraising events such as bake sells, pizza sales, and Cinnabon sales. The fundraisers money will be distributed to each Limpopo student to afford the entertainment on the planned trip to Monte Casino.  The approximate amount of money that each student will need for the Monte Casino excursion will be 150 Rands for dinner, snacks, and a movie. There will also be parent involvement through the parent committee to help sponsor the trip to Monte Casino. There is a possibility for the AISJ students to earn money to help contribute to the fundraiser by working at the Mistletoe Christmas Market.

 As far as the sleeping accommodation for the Limpopo students we are still deciding on whether or not to sponsor as hosts or by accommodating them on the AISJ campus.

The Limpopo students will arrive at AISJ for the weekend. The preliminary schedule dates will be in January 2014. The AISJ students will continue to aid the Limpopo students in their writing on their stories. The students will be paired to shadow an AISJ student through one or two classes. The AISJ counselors may present health talks on HIV/AIDS to create awareness. We may get guest speakers from similar backgrounds.

My personal learning moment while attending the Limpopo meeting was organizing, initiating, and scheduling the weekend in January for the Limpopo students intended arrival. During the meeting, I added my advice and thoughts on many of the topics. The learning moments that we will continue will be with our experiences from our previous visit at Marumofase High School in Limpopo. New lessons learnt from our experience at Marumofase High School were to limit the amount of games we offer. We found its best to focus a little longer on a few games than to rush them with many games. There were no conflicts that arose. The big picture that AISJ is aiming for is a published book that we can all be proud of.  

Link to Article on Limpopo Born Free-Project Published on Izindaba

Link to Article on Limpopo Born Free-Project Published on Izindaba

http://issuu.com/aisjcommunications/docs/21november_2013-izindaba_3.06?e=4858573/5710014

Limpopo Born-Free Article for Izindaba

Limpopo Born-Free Project

The weekend of November 15^th through 17^th the American International School of Johannesburg (AISJ) Limpopo team consisting of 13 students, 3 teachers, 2 guards, and a bus driver drove the 4-hour trip to Marumofase High School in Limpopo. The purpose of this mission was to assist the Marumofase High School students in writing, editing, and typing there personal born free short stories. This project is aimed to encourage the students to become very creative, expressive, and to tell their own personal explicit story of being the first born free generation from the oppressed Apartheid. Thanks to the hard efforts and support from the STUCO Committee whom implemented the Stationary Drive, which was very successful. They were collecting school supplies to be donated to the Marumofase school students allowing them to have the tools they needed to get their stories completed. This consisted of an incredibly generous amount of pens, pencils, erasers, sharpeners, packs of paper, notebooks, books, binders, and gadgets. The STUCO Committee was able to collect these by holding a House Competition between the houses of Apollo, Athena, Hermes, and Artemis at AISJ. Shout outs to Mrs. Murgues and her homeroom for the most donations. Our hats are off to all of you for your hard work and dedication. Of coarse none of this would be possible without the support of our entire school. Go eagles! Mrs. Fazenbaker and Rea Ralethe, the student leader thank you both for your hard work and coordination. The secretary, Raquel Wilson, kept careful notes, prepared the parent information letter, and collected the permission forms. Thank you for your dedication! To all of the AISJ Limpopo team members thank you for your positive attitudes, hard work, and consistency. On behalf of the AISJ Limpopo team we want to thank all of the Marumofase High School students for sharing their personal stories and allowing us into their lives. We know you all had to dig deep and become honest with yourselves to tell your stories to us. Your stories will live on forever and teach others the value of freedom and perseverance. On the other hand, the AISJ Limpopo team had to be sensitive and caring to each word that was spoken from the storytellers. With the support of Coach Funky and his inspirational speech to the Marumofase High School Students the AISJ Limpopo team was able to slowly immerse themselves on a personal friendly open level to encourage the students to begin their journey to allow us into their worlds. Students arrived with written story of their journey as a born-free. The AISJ Limpopo team carefully listened to the spoken words that were written on once blank papers. A collection of blank papers became incredible stories of courage, loss, and strength. The AISJ Limpopo team helped the students with pronunciation, spelling, grammar, and editing. Many of the young girls mourned over fathers that never raised them. While, the young boys expressed fears of self-protection. The stories that we read were raw, the students that we met were driven and motivated to achieve something higher than what they have, and their dreams are big. However, poverty still stricken them. Their sorrow and laughter was heard not only written. In conclusion, their stories reflected desperation but desire to achieve greatness. The AISJ Limpopo team along with Marumofase High School will meet again in February 2014 to complete the typing of the student’s stories, and produce a rough draft of the book to send to a publishing company.

-Written by Enya Calibuso, the Communications Officer

Afrika Tikkun Reflection

Afrika Tikkun Reflection

            Unfortunately, the Afrika Tikkun Book Club Project is postponed until the New Year of January 2014 because the Diepsloot students are on Summer Break. This does not stop the progress of Raquel Wilson and I on finalizing our plan. We are upset that we are missing quality time interacting with the Diepsloot students. However, in the same sense that quality time is spent on this mission. We are planning and initiating our own activity – Book Club. First, we will create posters to advertise our book club. We will post them throughout the Community Center and one at the front entry. The poster will read, “Come one, come all, come and join the reading book club on safety awareness TODAY from 3:10 P.M. to 4:10 P.M.” The Diepsloot Community Center Librarian will be notified of our upcoming plans. If we are challenged by a low participation rate, then we will walk around the Community Center to recruit children to join our reading book club. This book club will continue weekly on Thursdays from January 2014 to June 2014. Our book theme for the New Year will be safety and awareness. Reflecting from numerous news reports on crime, especially on children and “stranger danger.” I will obtain an array of books that would be age appropriate for many groups. These books will be obtained through various sources: either from the Diepsloot Community Center Library or the American International School (AISJ) Elementary Library. To begin each session, with Raquel and I as the tutors, we will read out loud to the children one book. We will carefully choose the book that will have the most impact on a learning lesson on safety. Then, we will give the children an opportunity to read to us. We will ask for the special volunteer of the day to read to the group with our assistance in pronunciation, sounding out words, and distinguishing vowels and consonants. We will set up a special volunteer of the day chair with a sign. The sign will read, “Special Volunteer of the Day!” After the student has read the story, as group we will discuss the main idea and plot. We will show pictures throughout the story. Time allotted for questions. The learned outcomes touched on during the Book Club will be planning and initiating activities, increased awareness of my strengths and areas for growth, undertaking new challenges, and developing new skills. My particular learning moment is planning and organizing this book club; taught me organization, planning skills, and communication through coordination. The fears of my own limitations would be overwhelmed with too many children. I can relate these learning moments to last years’ 2012 tutoring services in Afrika Tikkun. I’ve learned and experienced new lessons from last years Afrika Tikkun that I can implement this year in the Book Club. I learned to stay focused on the children who want to learn versus the children who are being distractive. Problem-solving scenarios is trying to keep the children orderly. I believe through having minimized groups with more one on one attention the children will be more focused and willing to learn. No conflicts have been raised as of yet. Future goals is to continue this Book Club throughout the year from January 2014 to June 2014 every Thursday. I see in the big picture that I am assisting and helping in the literacy rate of young South Africans in a developing world.

Limpopo Reflection

Limpopo Reflection

This Limpopo Lunch Meeting at the American International School of Johannesburg (AISJ) took place on 12 November 2013. The topic of this meeting was to create a more extensive list of appropriate games and plan the specific workshops each Limpopo team member will be teaching, directed toward writing the finalized book. A list of games intended play as icebreakers allowing time allotted include: hug tag, human knot, the Columbian hypnosis, and the image game. Hug Tag consists of tagging people on their bellies for no more than 5 seconds to protect oneself from the tagger. The Human Knot consists of the AISJ team members linking hands with the Limpopo students, making a knot; the objective is to untangle ourselves forming a line. The Columbian Hypnosis consists of hypnotizing the opponent by moving your hand rapidly and having them follow with their eyes. The Image Game consists of making a pose; then another person will add on to your pose. Each game was inspired by the teaching of Jennifer Hartley, an applied theater practitioner whom visited AISJ to address issues such as the theater of the oppressed. Learning these new games and implementing them in Marumofase High School will be a learning lesson for me and my team on the effectiveness of icebreakers to create trust. Depending on how many students will attend, many groups will be made to keep order and maintain our time limits for this quick or fun introduction. Following the icebreakers we will gather calmly in a located area to explain to the Limpopo students our vision for the finalized book. Our team will pay special attention to questions and answer them to the best of our abilities. We will encourage the students to ask questions and/or if they need help. Then, we will begin workshops. We will reiterate to the students that we are here to help them; they just need to ask. On the planned agenda, the first writing workshop is the listening and explaining workshop. At this time the AISJ team will clearly explain the aim of the project. We will be open to one on one individual problems and inspiring them to tell us something about themselves, which will then be put into writing into their own narrative. The next stepping-stone will take part on the AISJ team sharing our own personal experiences. This will enable us to become more relatable to the Limpopo students. Next is the writing workshop, in which we will assist the Limpopo students with their writing structure such as spelling, grammar, punctuation, details, figurative language, rhetorical devices, and expressive language. The AISJ team will be very sensitive to the stories of others, we will devote our full attention to listening to their stories, and we will not show judgment or criticism in any way. We will act with complete professionalism and compassion. The learned outcomes touched on during this meeting include ethical implications as well as issues of global importance. If and when the occasion occurs I will display my own limitations to the students thus allowing me to be humble. A new problem-solving scenario that could occur would be a student or many students not wanting to participate. I would handle this by letting them know its okay to not participate but they need to be observant to the games, and workshops. In this meeting we didn’t have any conflicts or any outstanding issues. The future goal is everything that has been spoken and written about in this meeting will be implemented during our Limpopo Service Project from 15 November to 17 November 2013. The big picture of this entire project will be the completed book and the experience itself.

Limpopo Reflection

Limpopo Reflection

This Limpopo Lunch Meeting in American International School of Johannesburg (AISJ) took place on 5 November 2013. Our mission is to focus on icebreakers and bonding during our visit to Marumofase High School. The Limpopo Team members from AISJ and myself aim to form relationships with the students before the writing process. Our agenda will include a game called Hug Tag. This is a game that all students participate 100% of the time. The rules of the game are to hug others for up to 5 seconds in order to be safe from the tagger. This technique will calm and relax the students and they will begin to trust the Limpopo team members. The second item on our agenda during this lunch meeting was to discuss what basic writing workshops we need to establish structure. Also, the Limpopo team members will be providing a continental breakfast consisting of juice boxes and granola bars for the students. This will allow them to have nutrition that will improve their cognitive skills during our writing workshops. This meeting encompassed one of my targeted learning outcomes, which is planning and initiating activities. This allowed me the opportunity to interact with more than 2 different countries, through combining multiple students from many countries to work together towards our final product – the book. One challenge during this meeting was producing activities and planning workshops that the whole Limpopo team could agree on. The entire Limpopo team worked appropriately and professionally to meet our needs. My own personal limitation and the team’s limitation during this meeting involved the quality of our discussion and the time in which it was restricted to. One learning moment that was derived from another experience is the hug tag game. We shared the idea of this game from Jennifer Hartley, an applied theater practitioner addressing the effects of oppression on creativity. She visited AISJ this previous September 2013. I will use my tutoring skills that I have honed at Afrika Tikkun working with the children in Diepsloot to enhance the learning of the children at Marumofase High School in Limpopo. Learning experiences from my previous service learning projects is to focus on smaller groups of children in order to maintain control and focus. No conflicts or issues arose during the meeting. Future goals include a scheduled meeting next week Tuesday 12 November 2013 in which the Limpopo team would create a more extensive list of appropriate games to play as icebreakers inspired by Dr. Hartley. Our expectation of a completed book is within closer range; the Limpopo team’s goal is to promote awareness of the born-free generation within South Africa.