Hi everyone, sorry my post is late. For my senior project, I am volunteering at Esperanza, inc., which is a non-profit organization devoted to bettering the lives of the Latino Community in Cleveland. Esperanza works with many different schools by finding mentors and tutors for the children. In my project, I am experiencing first-hand the way a non-profit organization is run. I work in the Esperanza office each day, usually doing whatever work that needs to be completed like entering data in a database or filing information.
On certain days in the morning, I help teach computer classes to many adults from the area. About half of the students speak mostly spanish, with some knowledge of the English language but not much, so I'm discovering how truly hard it is to communicate when my Spanish vocabulary falls short of what I need to say. However, my vocab is expanding, and I'm familiarizing myself with computer-related vocab.
From 3-5 p.m., the school kids come in for an after school program, in which they receive food and usually listen to a speaker. The most recent speaker was from Diversity in Action, but instead of lecturing, the speaker used activities such as the Telephone game and role-playing in order to convey the importance of diversity, tolerance, and acceptance to the children. I had the pleasure of participating in these activities and observing the way the kids reacted to each exercise, making connections between what goes on in their schools and what happened in the different scenes the children portrayed. I'm enjoying getting to know the kids and discovering each one's personality. It's always exciting to see what a great difference Esperanza is making in these children's lives and how happy the children are to be there.
Since I'm working with the same organization, I can completely relate to finding language as an obstacle to communicating with the kids. That being said, I can also relate to the sense of satisfaction and happiness you feel when you can see these kids begin to stretch their minds and start to grow more as people. It's a wonderful feeling to know that you—if only for a moment—are a part of an organization that positively impacts these children's lives. Keep up the good work, Shayla!
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