This time instead of a short description of our project’s activities held at the end of 2008 in Petko Slevejkov Home for Children without Parental Care in Sofia, I will share with you my own experience, feelings and thoughts about them. The Disney Foundation trusted us again and financed our project with a Disney Mini Grant of $ 500. We partnered with the Community Support Center to the Home. This centre provided us with the premises and the equipment needed for achieving our goals.
We began by a nice movie screening (Disney’s “Brother Bear”). It was really exciting for me to see the children to sit down calmly and quietly for the first time and to watch the adventures of the two friends Kenai and Koda. Also for the first time I had the opportunity to see them all - about 40 -50 boys and girls aged between 8 and 16 years.. The impact of the movie was unexpected for us as the story touched everyone.
So we took the opportunity and used the movie story to start a discussion on friendship, mutual aid, mutual care and forgiveness. Then we made together a huge number of drawings of the movie characters Kenai and Koda.
Later, throughout the week after we continued with talking about human rights, mutual tolerance and friendship between the people. The children made tolerance posters and origami, and wrote essays. In addition, we did some work. In order to celebrate the UN International Volunteer Day (December 5 ) we decorated and planted 10 flowerpots. We also made cookies for the party commemorating December 10 - the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Then we saw the art exhibition that the children made composed of the pieces of art they had made during the programme. We also had a lot of fun - chatting, laughing, eating cookies, playing with balloons and dancing.
The people who took part in the programme’s different activities were a colorful bunch of personalities and social backgrounds - about 50 children (residents of the Home), high school students, three European Volunteer Service volunteers and the Home’s personnel.
Ten university student volunteers, an artist, a mime and three wonderful grannies were our team leaders during the workshops. Wondering what unites us? Well, it is the desire to share our knowledge and positive energy with others while we are ourselves learning important lessons from them. Here are some of the moments that I will always remember:
While I was drawing mermaids for Yulia, I remembered my own childhood As a child I used to draw mermaids all the time with a set of old and a bit broken colorful pencils. No matter how difficult this made my painting I wouldn’t give up my mermaids for that.
My greatest achievement happened when I managed to convince two of the boys - Niky and Ioan - to take turns when they worked on one computer and to be patient to one another. I felt really proud when I saw Ioan typing his name confidently and really fast.
Making a tolerance poster
I was most surprised when Vesi one of the girls told me it was the fist time she saw dough while Valya shared that she had never seen raw eggs before.
Grandma Didi is explaining how to make dough for cookies
The moments that touched me most during the two-week programme were:
- When little Alish (one of the children considered the most mischievous) met us at the door with Christmas bells and gave them to us as presents. Those are the most special Christmas bells in the whole world.
- When little Yulia read aloud my essay on how I feel about my best friends Olia and Geri and introduced me to her little brother.
What did I learn?
I learnt that every human being - from the youngest to the oldest - is unique and very special. I also got to love my friends even more and made new friends. I found out that caring for others, educating them and being friends with them are not easy tasks and should be done with great attention and dedication.
What did I not learn?
I didn’t learn how to make paper rockets and cookies.
What did I miss?
I would like to have had more people to help the children to find out the beautiful and magic sides of life and the world. I think I have missed YOU.
Here you can see more pictures showing beautiful moments: http://picasaweb.google.com/volunteer.bg/bDBjcG#
I would be happy to meet you soon because, as you can see volunteering is awarded with the best prizes in life.
Smiles,
Maggie
