Service Program at FS

This activity was initiated by our school as favor to the underprivileged children. The school offered many different things to those children like Football, Arts, ICT, Volleyball and etc. I volunteered to join the ICT team and my classmates and me were made the in charge of the ICT team.

The children came from the following rural areas:

  • Barbodhan
  • Umra
  • Tunda

We taught the children the basics of computers and how they were operated, we made them play typing games so that their typing skills would increase. We spent 6 sessions with them and we made sure we taught those children the basics of typing and the alphabet. I chose ICT because I am inclined towards computers and have a good grip on the basics of it.

 

We had to plan the study materials that will be taught to them and in it we included:

  • Exploring google maps
  • Basic Typing (Alphabets and Short sentences)
  • Presentation making
  • Typing games
  • Drawing games (Tux Paint)

Learning Outcomes Catered to:

LO2: As we were used to operating computers in our day to day lives so we knew the functioning of a PC, whereas those children did not know anything about them at all. There were some minor issues with the functioning of the PCs as some of them weren’t working so the number of students increased the number of computers. One of the main challenges that we faced was to converse with the children. We were finding difficulties in trying to explain them different things about the computer as they weren’t familiar with English. We tried to make a friendly conversation with the children to make them feel comfortable and this strategy worked with the kids as they were opening up more and sharing and gaining knowledge. The class became productive and we were able to share our knowledge with the kids in an exciting an fun manner.

LO3: One of the main factors of running a class efficiently is a good plan. Planning played an important part in our Sessions, we needed to have an efficient plan or else we would have nothing to demonstrate to the students . We had to conduct 6 sessions lasting 1 hour and 30 minutes each. We had planned according to the level of understanding of the students and made a rough plan. We had divided activities into different segments as per the approximate time required to complete each activity and we allocated the volunteers in such a way that with every three children there would be one volunteer present so that all the children could learn and not waste any time. The plan that we created went accordingly and we executed it as planned.

LO4: We were not particularly excited as the service sessions were occurring on weekends. The look on the children’s faces when they learnt something new was precious and it made us committed towards our goal to share our knowledge with other individuals. We showed full commitment towards our task and made sure we conducted our sessions with full energy and passion. Due to repetitive tasks maintaining persistancy was as every week some new children  were added to the class and we had to go all over again and explain everything from the beginning. It felt a bit tiring as the tasks were monotonous but we found interesting ways in which children could do the same tasks without getting bored.

LO5: Working together was not a problem for me as I had previously had taken part in such situations although, keeping everyone on track was a huge task for us and we managed to tackle it. We improvised on our plans and we kept track of what everyone is doing and make sure they are not loitering around. We divided the tasks to different volunteers and we made sure that they were explaining each child with compassion. The volunteers also did a great job and were successfully able to make the underprivileged children feel at home and that is why they were able to gain a lot of knowledge about a thing which they have not seen in their life. Overall the flow of the sessions went perfectly which I did not predict and it was all possible because we worked together as a team and ran the sessions smoothly.

LO6: Lack of education and educational resources are an issue of global significance as these children are a part of a very fast moving a modern generation and with the technological advancements and modernization it is difficult if these children don’t specialize in a particular field or it would be less likely for them to get employed. Technology plays an important role in an individual’s day to day life, it is almost mandatory for these children to learn about these advancements as they don’t have enough resources. By conducting this service session  we taught the children the basics of computers so that it might create a burning desire in a few of them to pursue this as a career option too and this might help them improve their lives in the near future.

LO7: The children who attended our sessions did not come from a well off background and did not have enough resources, at first they were feeling inferior when we talked with them maybe by seeing our school but we made sure that the whole ICT team was talking to the children in a polite and friendly way. We made them feel comfortable so that they did not feel inferior and focused only and only on learning

Conclusion: In the end it was a fantastic experience for me as I was able to perform a good deed towards those children and with the help and support from our group I’m pretty sure we inspired some of those students to become techies in the future.

 

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