Today, I visited City of Refuge, one of the sites I will be volunteering at. Although it was definitely an adventure to get to, it was totally worth it. We saw the home where Stacy and John, the people in charge of the organization and all the kids live as well as the school they attend. The school was divided into kindergarten, first grade and a class of older students who were working with a teacher who taught them at their own pace. Both buildings were on a relatively large property with lots of cows and chickens everywhere (in other animal news, we saw a baboon in the road a few minutes away!).
The home was divided into four bedrooms, one was the boys room which had space for nothing other than beds, all bunked. The second was a girls room which had a little more room (or just fewer beds), John and Stacy's bedroom and the elder student's teacher's bedroom. There was also a living room, kitchen and dining room with a big table. There were a few staff members at the house--a security guard and some care takers who prepare meals and take care of the youngest children during the day. It felt very homey, and welcoming--which is a novelty for most of the children who come to live there.
After giving us the tour of the place, they took us to their future site which truly amazed me. They have 20 acres of land where they are building new homes for the students, a separate home for John, Stacy and their own children, staff homes, a bigger school with more classrooms, which they plan to open for all students in the area, a giant football field, a center for summer activities and camps (also open to children in the community). A few things about this truly amazed and inspired me:
First of all, it was over ninety degrees today, but despite this about 15 men were all working on building--hand creating cement blocks to build the walls, digging trenches for water pipes, getting ready to pave roads--create an entire village with no machines or power tools. They began this process on December 28 and expect to be done by August. I couldn't believe it. In New York, there are some buildings I've never seen without scaffolding in the past year and a half because they take so long to finish an apartment building. These workers were creating a village. An entire village, and they were going to be done in 8 months? Absolutely incredible, I'm so happy and excited for them.
Secondly, John and Stacy were explaining their goals and stated they didn't want to compare themselves to other organizations but in researching how to create a program that would best serve and improve the lives of trafficked children, they visited many orphanages. They noticed, like most businesses, that money ran most of these programs and the staff often focused on profit rather than using every resource to feed, teach and provide health care for the children and thus, make sure City of Refuge is different. With their new space, they are going to designate 5 acres to growing crops so they will be completely sell sufficient and with this, they will also educate other programs on how to provide for their children more efficiently and effectively. As Stacy said, instead of working on projecting images of sad, starving children and announcing to the public that the children need help (we've all seen those commercials), just feed them. It was very clear, and Stacy even directly explained, that they weren't interested in any sort of profit, just keeping their kids healthy and happy. I completely admire that not only are they aiming to perfect their own program, but make sure to reach out to as many children in need as possible, just proving how much impact an individual can truly have. Maybe for the first time in my life, or maybe just in a more intense way than I've ever witnessed before, I have seen pure selflessness, which was inspiring just to see.
I'm really grateful that I've found this program because it represents everything I believe in and I am excited to hopefully add a new component to it by bringing art to these children. Stacy was telling us about how the children have a lot of trouble sharing their stories, when they try they often break down in tears and do not know how to process many of their emotions. Additionally, until the program expands to children from the community, each child in City of Refuge is relatively limited and I think having a creative outlet, a means to self-express will be really freeing and allow each student to explore him or herself and their unique potential.
It was a really great experience and I can't wait to start volunteering on Monday! I'll post again tomorrow about what else is going on here in Accra. Again, if you are interested in donating to City of Refuge, there is an easy way to do that online: http://www.cityofrefugeoutreach.com/ if you want the donations to go directly to my program, put a memo "Elizabeth Tulsky Art Program." Any donations (either to me or to the whole organization) would be incredibly appreciated, thank you so much!
No comments:
Post a Comment