ABAN and Children of the Light

Sorry for the blog silence, I have much to update everyone on! I will start with my service-learning volunteer experiences at A Ban Against Neglect (ABAN) and Children of the Light after-school program. 

While at ABAN we, two other Calvin students and myself, worked with about twenty women and their children. The program is designed to empower these women, most of them school dropouts, to obtain employment and learn business skills so that they will be respected in their various communities and also provide for their families. There is a special emphasis given to being environmentally friendly especially with the water sachets that many people buy. Seamstresses that are employed at ABAN use these sachets to make various products such as bags and purses. These women were eager to learn and they were a joy to be around! We were able to help organize a their library, create a community event proposal, help out in the daycare, and also teach a few classes. Reflecting on my experience there, words cannot truly describe and express how wonderful these women and the staff at ABAN are!Learn more about ABAN at www.aban.org

Pictured below: The ABAN women working on a recycling project, the library we organized, daily classroom set-up, and two of the kids playing together.

At Children of the Light after school program we worked with teachers and helped supervise the many kids that come every Tuesday and Thursday. They are currently readying themselves for their annual Christmas program, so they were coloring stars and Christmas trees. We also helped tutor kids in math and spelling as those are the areas that the teachers identified as needing the most work. Despite not having incredibly fun content to work on, these kids were very enthusiastic and upbeat which was impressive and slightly overwhelming for me (in a good way)! 

Pictured below: the kids working on Christmas decorations.