See It: The Community being helped

The Big Kuya Project (Kuya means brother) of our club started last December 2006.

Sitio Kabulusan is one of the most depressed areas in the Philippines. People in this community would often fall in a state of lethargy, accompanied by occasional gambling, gossiping, and alcoholism (even at the wee hours of the morning). Most women of Sitio Kabulusan are stay-at-home moms, while fathers work as carpenters, construction workers, taxi, jeepney, and pedicab drivers. Their blue-collared jobs could not afford them a decent home. They live in frail, wooden houses besides a creek. Learning about this situation and environment, we wondered how do the children adopt and live a normal life. Moreover, who are their role models? What kind of values do they get? Do they deserve all of this?

After making a survey and gathering information, our organization, the Rotaract Club of Manila Metro, decided to provide the children lessons on character education. We asked the help of their barangay to give us a list of children ages 8-12-years-old that were willing to come for Saturday lessons on character education. At first, there were only twenty (20) children: girls and boys who voluntarily participated in our story-telling sessions and other activities. After two weeks, our list grew bigger—from twenty (20) to thirty five (35) children. But since the area didn’t have a bigger venue to accommodate all these children, we decided to do our lessons in a basketball court beside the creek.

See It: The Community being helped

Free English classes are offered to our community two nights a week. With atleast fifty students in attendanace, our services have helped immigrants from more than 15 nations. Being in Texas, most of our students are from Mexico, but some are from Asia as well. Our volunteer program began two and a half years ago by college students and has been run solely by college students ever since. Every class, we come face to face with the desperate need for these men and women to learn English. They need jobs to provide for their families. They need to be able to call the doctor when their children get sick. They need to be able to function in society by doing the basic things like grocery shopping and inviting other children to their child's birthday party. They need friends in this country that is so familiar to us but so foreign to them.

See It: The Community being helped

Mothers Without Borders is a non-profit organization that travels to Zambia in Africa and performs humanitarian aide to the good people there. It is well known that HIV and AIDS is an epidemic that is wiping out an entire generation. As more and more parents infected by HIV die, their orphaned children are then put in charge of caring for themselves. They have to find a way to provide food for their younger siblings even if this means they have to stop going to school. More than thirty six million children under the age of fifteen are orphaned in Sub-Saharan Africa today. Our purpose is to address the needs of orphaned and abandoned children. We support efforts to provide safe shelter, food and clean water, education and access to caring adults. We try and provide the children in Zambia with caring adults that will teach values and love them when we leave. I am a member of the team traveling in June. I wanted to make a big difference in someone’s life, so I became a volunteer. Even though I have had to sacrifice some things to go, I know it will be the most rewarding experience! It is so exciting to think that I will be able to make a difference in the lives of children who have had so many burdens put upon them just because they were born in an area that was suffering from a life-threatening virus. If I am able to put a smile on a child’s face my trip will be so worth it!! It has been a great experience already in the preparation for my expedition. I have participated in donating to a boutique that was organized to help raise money that we will take with us to Africa. I am so excited to be helping these wonderful people!
Some of the things I will be doing while I am in Zambia are:
• Tutoring children in English, music, art, and recreation,
• Holding, feeding, and caring for preemie babies in the hospital
• Teaching health and hygiene to women and children in a local village
• Simple construction of one room schools, poultry houses, dormitories, and village homes
• Teaching life skills to orphans living in the MWB Children’s Resource Center
• Teaching AIDS awareness and prevention to widows and orphans
• Assisting with medical screenings in a local village
• Teaching and building raised gardens for widows in the village
• Teaching sewing, knitting, crocheting, and other simple skills

See It: The Community being helped

The Fire Explorers is a program that lets teenagers and young adults experience and learn about the fire and emergency medical services. We explorers run the post. We elect our own officers, have dues that we collect monthly, and also plan our own meetings. We show leadership to our own explorers because we are leading each other with teamwork and responsibilities with help of our advisors. In the program we learn: CPR and First Aid, Search and Rescue in a structure, fire operations, fire pump operations, medical terminology, vehicle extrication, fire sprinkler operations, hazardous materials training, water and ice rescue training, ropes and knots, rappelling, and more topics in the same field, along with teambuilding excursuses. Although we do learn a lot in the program, we are also given many opportunities to help the fire department and the community out. We have a ride along program where when you meet certain requirements (like knowing the equipment on fire trucks and knowing how to use them properly), where you are able to spend hours with a shift and observe what they do on a shift. We also help at community functions where we teach children certain things like knowing how to get out of their houses and stop, drop, and roll. Along with riding along and teaching, we do many other public events like traffic directing at fairs and we also walk along parade routes giving out stickers and badges. I think that the fire explorers program not only makes a difference on what us explorers learn, but also the public who sees us young adults teaching and helping out our community.

See It: The Community being helped

After coming back from a month of English teaching in Senegal, the lack of educational resources has inspired me to participate in literacy endeavours such as Books for Africa.

See It: The Community being helped

The Global Language Group, also known as Global Languages, is a non-profit, official student organization of The George Washington University (GW). It was founded by GW student Andrew Brown in September 2005, in effort to develop cooperation within the community through the education of international languages and cultures.

Breaking down the language and culture barriers is the first and most important step to bringing people together around the world. The organization's mission is to increase global awareness and break down culture and language barriers, by making the education of language and culture accessible to the public, in an effort to foster a global community.

One important objective of the Group is to help the community see far beyond language barriers and put foreign languages to a practical, cultural use from which individuals can truly benefit. In effort to help bridge the gap between cultures, native speakers teach free language and culture classes.

What began with Brown teaching five to ten languages by himself has now become an endeavor involving approximately 230 volunteer teachers, offering free classes in 53 different languages. In addition to supplementing the University’s instruction of common languages, the Group teaches more exotic and rare languages that are scarcely taught at any language institute or university in the United States.

Global Languages offers Survival Skills and Language Immersion classes. All classes are free of charge and taught by trained volunteer instructors. In addition to offering free language classes, Global Languages offers weekly cultural events including Ambassador Speaker Panels, Embassy visits, workshops, guest lecture series, Survey of Languages lecture series, fair-trade open-air markets, foreign film screenings, and a number of other events.

In its first six months, the organization quickly grew to a membership of over 3,000 GW students, staff, and faculty. As Global Languages opened its programs to the public in April 2006, it received a remarkable increase in membership as many members of the Washington, DC community began to participate.

The GW Student Activities Center's September 2006 assessment quoted registered members to be over 7,200, including the large amount of members from the community. This number also includes an approximate 250 volunteer staff members, of which over 230 are volunteer instructors. Many of the individuals reflected in the general membership are those who participate in Global Languages cultural events. The number of members participating specifically in the language classes is included.

Registration for Global Languages Immersion classes went from over 100 students in the fall of 2006, to approximately 350 students in the spring of 2007, to 540 in the summer of 2007, to a record 1,100 plus students in the fall of 2007.

This overwhelming increase in general membership as well as class registration placed Global Languages as GW's largest student organization. A growth of this magnitude in such short time is clear proof of the importance of foreign languages and cultures and their place in the GW and Washington, DC community.

Global Languages is the recipient of multiple awards at GW, including the Pyramid Award for Student Organization of the Year, Excellence in Diversity, and (twice) the Walter G. Bryte Achievement Award, which recognizes outstanding leadership, dedication, and service exemplifying the ideals of the United States of America and the George Washington University. Additionally, Brown received the Baer Award for Individual Excellence, the Walter G. Bryte Achievement Award, and The George Washington Award, the highest honor/award at The George Washington University.

See It: The Community being helped

Ever since I was in the fourth grade, I had been involved in all sorts of community work. As I am a "half-professional" ballerina and Chinese Culture Dance(I have passed the highest level of the Royal Academy of Ballet and the Beijing Chinese Dance Institute but I do not plan to make a living in dancing), my parents and I decided to set up two projects in the places where I do volunteering work. Now, I teach dancing to disabled kids in a special kindergarten for disabled children (even if they are mute, deaf , blind or crippled)and offer free drawing lessons to kids in my local hospital(I am the assistant of paeditricians).Arts engage all students in education, from those who are already considered successful and are in need of greater challenges, to those who would otherwise remain detached and be at riskk of not being able to realize their own potential for success. Arts provide an avenue for people to express themselves ably and communicate with others through perceiving the world, then mentally organizing and retrieving the information, utilizing their thoughts to transform their experience into artistic language.

See It: The Community being helped

This is a club of college students who meet with grade school children every week to do activities on a college campus. We introduce the kids to professors and visit different buildings on the Notre Dame campus to show the kids the benefits of attending college. The kids are in 1st through 4th grade, and none of their parents ever went to college. So, generally we are their first impression and experience with higher education. We teach them about all the opportunities college can offer, and how they could attend. The kids are very enthusiastic about their visits, and they are excited to learn what the new activity will be each day.

See It: The Community being helped

My name is Hannah Rogers, and I am a senior at Landmark Christian School in Fairburn, Georgia. I would like to take a few minutes and tell you how I am impacting my community through education in the Arts. For the past three years, I have been a piano teacher, teaching children at my school ranging in ages from four to twelve. All of my students learn and practice basic piano and theory skills. I started out with two students, and my business has grown, reaching its maximum of seven students in 2006. All of my students work extremely hard to put on a recital held in November, often working up the very day of the performance. They perform solo pieces and duets in many different genres of music including classical, jazz, and contemporary.
In order for them to succeed at the recital, it was necissary for me to realize that my students are all different. They all have a different learning style, and the methods that work for one student may not work for the others. I pride myself in being able to reach out to all students no matter what age or learning style, but this has not always been the case. Thoughout my entrepreneurship, I have come some students who have a natural musical ability and a few who do not. I have learned over the years how to recognize and reach out to those students in need. I often remind my students not to be discouraged if they do not understand the material right away, because playing the piano takes more than talent; it takes style and didication.
In the past three years, my students and I have been able to overcome many obstacles in order to put on a successful recital. While some of my piano students have trouble remembering to practice, others struggle with musical theory, and still others have problems reading music. Although sometimes during the lesson both student and teacher can get a little frusterated, all of my students are able to learn their music in time for my annual recital in November.
The picture I have sent was taken after the first recital in November of 2006. All of my students are pictured, holding a certificate documenting their excellent peformance skills and a special reward for playing so well.

See It: The Community being helped

Summary: Everybody Dance Now! offers FREE, on-site, year-round classes for Santa Barbara's underprivileged youth. Functioning under Santa Barbara Dance Alliance's 501c3 nonprofit status, Everybody Dance Now! (EDN!) has taught dance at 16 sites to over 500 children and teens who might not otherwise have the opportunity. Mission: We strive to instill self-esteem and confidence in children through dance, while encouraging them to work toward goals in a supportive and creative learning environment. We give them a healthy outlet to express themselves, and to enable them to build friendships, find role models and mentors in their instructors, and develop a sense of belonging and self-resepct. Not to mention, it's fun and brings students joy! One unique aspect of the program is that not only do students perform for their peers; they also dance for the elderly, the terminally ill, and people with brain injuries or disabilities, so that they, too, can feel the joy of giving back. These community performances give our students a further sense of self-value. Teachers: Most of our instructors are high school and college students, because we believe that the closeness in age to our students creates a strong sense of understanding, as well as a fun atmosphere. We began with 3 teachers and have had over 25 instructors involved, with 10 currently teaching. My Inspiration: When I was twelve, I performed a hip-hop dance for eighty teens with disabilities through an organization called Santa Barbara Dance Alliance. You can imagine how nervous I was. But as soon my music came on and the audience started bouncing, I could see that they enjoyed the dance moves and loud music. One boy had to have two men hold him down because he couldn’t contain his enthusiasm. Then, halfway into my dance, the music stopped unexpectedly. The audience began shouting, "Do it again!"—so I started over, until my song cut a second time. I didn't know what to do until the silence was broken by a girl who yelled, "We want to dance!" I figured there was no harm in going along with her idea and was able to talk my horrified program director into it. We invited groups onstage to let loose and dance freely. That day, I realized that dance is more than an after-school activity; it is a powerful creative force that can bring people together and give them joy and self-esteem. Four years later, I haven’t forgotten the way it felt to see those teenagers full of self-confidence and adrenaline from dancing. World & Cultural Dance: In May and June, 2007, Derrick Curtis and Trudie Olsen taught Latin Dance at Cesar Chavez, Franklin, Adams and Cleveland, exposing the children to the dances of their culture and opening their eyes to styles of dance beyond hip-hop! In July, 2007, Tanya Keenan taught two swing dance classes with our Girls Inc group as a special treat. Throughout 2007-2008, EDN! will expand its guest teacher world dance program to offer classes in styles including Afro-Brazilian, Middle Eastern & Oriential, Latin, Flamenco and Swing. What better hands-on, fun way to teach our young leaders about diversity than through dance? Additional Events: -In April, EDN! invited teens with the Santa Barbara Dance Alliance's "ON THE VERGE: Teen Choreographer's Showcase" to dance at our Cleveland and Franklin Elementary School classes. EDN! students were also given free tickets to the showcase in May, 2007. This was an incredible source of motivation and inspiration for them! -In November, 2007, 40 of our students will go to a dance studio and take a special master dance class with Buck World One, a "krumping" group from Northern California. -In the spring, 2008, Tommy the Hip-Hop Clown, the legendary pioneer of krump dance, featured in David Chapelle's movie "Rize," and his troupe, will teach two giant master classes for Everybody Dance Now! and the community!