Education Project
for
Mostar Orphanage

May 18, 2005  -  June 19, 2005

This page provides the schedule and a journal from TWI volunteers and their Bosnian partners who provided educational assistance to children at the orphanage in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Wednesday

Thursday

•  Coordinate "Work Plan" with Bosnian Partners

See pictures of our Time off and Cultural tours.

Through

June 16, 2005

• Tour of Sarajevo
• Travel to Mostar  

An Overview of Activities during our time at the Mostar Orphanage (May 20 - June 16, 2005)

We got there on a Friday and had the weekend to adjust and settle in. When we first got there, we were shown to our rooms and told that we would meet with Sabahita (Our Point of Contact at the Orphanage) on Monday. When we did meet with her, she took us to talk to the caretakers where we were given a list of the children separated by ages. 

We were to have four groups: really little ones, 1st through 4th graders, 5th through 8th graders, and high school students. We would have each group for approximately an hour. We tried this for the first couple of days and quickly realized that the little ones could not work in a classroom environment. It was absolute chaos, and we were basically babysitting them for the hour. This is when we decided to eliminate this class because we were already spending a lot of time with this group of children outside of class. It seemed like they would benefit more from this interaction than from sitting in a classroom restlessly for an hour.

Our classroom schedule basically looked like this: 1st-4th grade from 10 am to 11 am, 5th-8th grade from 4:15-5:15, and high school kids from 5:15-6:15. We had about 15 kids in each class. In our free time during the afternoon, we would eat lunch in the cafeteria with the kids, sometimes go into town if we needed to get something, or hang out with the kids on the playground. After classes, we would have a short coffee break, eat dinner with the kids, then either play with them until they went to bed or go into town. Usually if any of us went into town, at least one of us would stay to spend time with the kids. 

The first day, we had decided that we were going to study the alphabet and numbers. When the kids arrived, we realized that we needed visuals for the kids in order for them to be able to pronounce the words and remember them. Because we didn't have a blackboard, we started with making posters to hang up that had English words and the Bosnian translations. We did that for colors, numbers, days of the week, and descriptive words. That's when Rachel and Zlata started drawing pictures for some of the words. This turned into the walls being covered with pictures of body parts, weather, animals, food, and clothing with English captions under every picture. 

After a few days, we pretty much had a classroom routine down. The kids each had a little "English notebook" to write in, so they would come in, and we would direct them to the part of the room that had the subject we would be studying that day. The kids would get out their notebooks and start copying down the words. Then we would go through the words and have different kids repeat them after us. With body parts, we would point to a body part and the kids would have to say it in English. With some of the food and animals, we would cover the English word and ask what the name of the picture was. This would usually hold their attention for about 45 minutes. At that point, we would sometimes play Twister to work with colors, right and left, and body parts. 

A lot of the older kids had English tests in school and English homework that they needed help with. Usually one of us would work with those kids individually while the others led the class. Also, if any kids wanted to read some of the English storybooks we brought or color, they had the option to do that too.

While we do feel like a lot was accomplished in the classroom, it really seemed like the most progress was made outside of the classroom. We spent so many hours just talking and playing with the kids. A lot of the kids already had some English proficiency, so the constant practice made a huge difference in their ability to speak somewhat fluently. When I think about when we first met them compared to how well they were speaking when we left, the difference is tremendous. This exchange went both ways, though. My understanding of Bosnian improved tremendously as the children and I told each other how to say things in English and Bosnian.

Friday

 See pictures of our Volunteers and Bosnia Partners with the children in Mostar.

Saturday

Sunday