On Monday they went to their organizations and began needs assessments and began to think about what kinds of projects they wanted to develop with kids and the communities there.
The volunteers were split up into three groups, two groups going to one comedor, Tierra Nueva (one group in the morning, the other in the afternoon), and the last group to another comedor in another neighborhood, Cielo Azul. The “donations” they had made when they paid for their program where pretty hefty, especially when converted to pesos (especially since the pesos has fallen from 3 pesos to the dollar in January to almost 4 pesos to the dollar right now), so the kids had lots to play with an didn’t need to utilize quite the same tight belted creativity that I or the other interns did.
They set out and began to chat with the kids, find out their interests and topics they would be engaged in or they felt necessary to impart knowledge. One group decided to do a beautification project in the patio space behind the comedor, including a mural to brighten the space, painted chalk boards outside with chalk board paint, made board games on the ground with paint, and then also taught them daily about various health topics using fun and interactive games! The second group focused more on teaching them English and on creating and leaving games that can be used again in the future, including memory using English words, a world map which they used to learn how to do research projects, a new white board and lots of art project materials.
Honestly, the Stanford students put a lot of work into these projects. While they were only in the comedores about 4 hours a day, they would meet or go shopping for materials with most of the rest of the day. At first me and my coworkers spent time attempting to mediate their expectations and ambitions, but in the end they actually ended up doing most of what they had planned.
In the middle of the first week we had them take a day off from their community projects, to go and do another one day community service project at another comedor…followed by a very special event!
