|
Childcare seminar July 2011
Seminar teachers: Emmakulatha Bujiku and Jesca Paulo
The seminar consisted of three different groups Bethany care workers, Bethany older girls and care workers from Forever angels (baby home), Tumaini children’s home, JBFC and Starehe children’s home. The topics covered were:
Child development: Physical, social and emotional skills. Caring for children, factors affecting child development, areas of development from 2yrs to 11yrs, how to support a child’s development, child safety and basic First Aid.
Behaviour management: How children behave, Disciplining children (different ways of disciplining children) ,Punishment or reward, importance of consistency.
Communication skills: Verbal and non-verbal communication skills, ways to communicate with children, listening skills and team work.
Supporting children’s learning: how children learn, the importance of play in children’s learning
The first seminar was with our own Bethany care workers. The group consisted of 24 people with limited English language. Taking this group was absolutely amazing. Everybody was very positive and supportive. Although the only problem was the language barrier but we managed to overcome it by using different practical examples. Using practical demonstrations made it easier for them to understand better because they could see how it works in real life situations.
The second group we took was the Bethany secondary girls, STD six girls and two secondary boys (Ntare and Emmanuel Shaban). We taught them in two different groups, the secondary children and STD six girls. This group was very easy to teach as we did not have to use Swahili at all. This made everything easy because we could communicate in English and we were able to understand one another. The secondary children were better than the STD six girls as they did have the privilege of learning childcare during our last visit on July 2010. However, with all their hard working and determination they seemed ok.
The last group we taught was all the care workers from other children’s homes and four people from the village. This group was the biggest group as it had 27 people in it. There were care workers from Forever Angels (baby home), Tumaini children’s home, JBFC, Starehe children’s home, Sogesca and Nyamahona secondary school. Like Bethany care workers we had to use Swahili as no one in the group really spoke good English. This made it difficult for us because when we did the child care course we did it all in English and it was difficult to translate some of the technical words. But the good thing was we had Eliada Bujiku (Daniel’s wife) to help us with some Swahili vocabulary.
All the teaching was done in Swahili and a bit of English, for example all our handouts were in English and Swahili. We used Swahili because most of the people who attended the course were STD seven leavers and used Swahili and Sukuma.
We also had discussion groups, practical demonstrations and games. The idea of the games was to let them understand the importance of play and help them have different ideas of how to use play when working with children. They really enjoyed the egg drop activity! Practical demonstrations were very effective as it helped them to see how it works in real life situations and be able to make connections to their own practices.
The seminar was done in three days. The first day of the seminar we started at 10 am. This was because we had an induction for the visitors (care workers from different children’s home). This was to show them where they would be sleeping and of course show them around Bethany. This was only for the visitors as we did not have to do this for our care workers as they were familiar with everything. The second day the sessions started at 8.30am to 5.00pm.
In the evening they watched a video on Supernanny followed by discussions about it. Watching Suppernanny was an eye opener for everybody. The programme which originated in the United Kingdom about parents struggling with their children's behaviour. The show features a professional nanny , who devotes each episode to helping in situations where the parents are struggling with their child rearing. Through instruction and observation, she shows the parents alternative ways to discipline their children and regain order in their households. Jo Frost is a proponent of the "naughty chair” theory of discipline and is strictly opposed to corporal punishment. They really liked the programme and even asked if they could have a copy of the CD so that they could show other people who could not attend the seminar in their children’s home. Most of them were amazed at what Supernanny did to help children with behaviour problems.
The discussions also went down really well as everybody was so eager to share their ideas and we did learn a lot from these discussions. The interesting thing was some people shared even their own problems and asked for help. For example there was a woman who said her boy does not want to do his home work and she was struggling to get him to understand the importance of doing his school work instead of playing football and watching TV. Therefore what we suggested was to try and stop him playing football and watching TV until he has done his school work. And if this will not work then she could try withdrawing privileges as an alternative way.
Furthermore, during discussions most people were open and cooperated really well in their groups. We even made them present some of their ideas in front of everybody in the class so they could hear what other groups had been discussing. This went down really well as it gave a chance to criticise some of the ideas that they thought were not so good. Also the good thing about group discussion was the willingness to share, present and listen to one another without interrupting or being disrespectful. We were also moved by their tendency of correcting and supporting each other during sessions.
One of the important things that they gained was the First Aid and it was one of those things that people do but do not realise why. Most did not know what to do when a child is burnt. Most people thought that if someone is burnt you put oil or egg on the wound. This shocked us a lot because if someone is burnt you are not supposed to apply any fat on the wound. Therefore when they were taught not to do this it really opened their eyes. Along with the training, all four children’s homes were provided with first aid books, cling film, bandages and thermometers. There were all grateful and appreciated everything.
On the last day of the seminar they did an examination and evaluation. The examination was to test what they had gained in the seminar. They all did well and this was because everybody worked so hard. Along with their exam results they were also presented with a certificate to prove that they had attended the course. For the majority of people this was their first certificate as they had never before had a certificate in their lives. Therefore they were so grateful and happy to receive it. Having the certificate was the best moment of the course; this is because they could go back as experts in their job of caring for children.
The evaluation was about the feedback and it consisted of questions on how they found the seminar. The majority of the feedback was positive; however some people felt that the seminar was too short and it could have been better if the seminar was for three months not three days. Also some of the feedback was about the language used. We did find some words hard to translate in Swahili as the Swahili language has a limited vocabulary. Take for example the word ‘good’ in Swahili it means ‘nzuri’ but in English there are different words to describe something good, for example wonderful, brilliant, excellent etc.
The care workers from Bethany and the other four children’s home were excited about all the knowledge received and despite the language barrier were very contented and tried very hard. It was a privilege to be with them for three days because they inspired us to do better in the future. Although we were a bit apprehensive before the seminars began it all turned out well and we appreciated the experience.
To sum up, the child care seminar was exceptional and productive; we say this due to the fact that we received some very positive feedback from the evaluation as well as from talking to the people who attended the course.
We hope that the people who attended the course will use what they have learnt and more importantly they will share the knowledge they have obtained with other people. This is because we hope to change some of the Tanzanian values, and education is a very powerful weapon we can use to change Tanzania.
Reported by Emmakulatha Bujiku
|
