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This summer I had the privilege of leading the second summer group of volunteers. The trip consisted of four students and myself from Edge Hill University: Charlotte Collins, Mel Dent, Hollie North and Jade Malone alongside five other local volunteers who were: Sue and Emily Harling and Carol, Hannah and Sophie Kay.
We spent fifteen days at Bethany teaching all the children from pre-school to secondary school in an intensive, action packed timetable. Throughout the day the volunteers taught within six sessions, including a sport session and a directed activity session. The aim of each of these was to deliver the English content in a particularly focused manner, which was accessible to children of both high and low ability, aspiring to develop the children’s English as fully as possibly during our visit. We were very lucky to have a diverse range of volunteers on this trip who brought with them many practical skills such as baking and sewing, which they were able to impart to the children at various points of the trip. From my observations as I passed through classes taught on site, the children thoroughly enjoyed the activities and the lessons taught by the volunteers. I am very grateful to each of the volunteers for the time they committed to planning and delivering these so well.
Whilst we were at Bethany we also planned lots of extra activities such as: sports day, letter writing, video night and evening story reading, each a great success! During our stay I also took the volunteers off site to visit the village school, the local town (Magu) and another orphanage run by the state called Mkula. Each of these was an extremely valuable visit, enabling the visitors to ascertain the reality of things they already understood about Africa and at points learn a little bit more about Africa.
Since I left Bethany twelve months ago the children’s English and behaviour overall around site has increased tremendously and the English ethos on site is certainly a contributing factor in this! It was great to see such a positive step in the children’s education taking real form around site at Bethany and I do hope this is something that will continue being developed as all the new changes in the education at Bethany transpire.
Karen Ross
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