“Please continue this great service,” a school teacher once wrote referring to the school sessions we hold in Kids Kabin. What is so great in what we do? I cannot help but wonder when I came across this comment. From my perspective as a volunteer, I believe that we do fun and useful activities with kids, but… great?! As I dig-in to what the teachers are saying, I also saw the greatness of the small things that happen in Kids Kabin.
Another teacher talks about what she finds most helpful in Kids Kabin school sessions: “hands-on learning of life skills with knowledgeable staff.” “Children [take] part in hands-on activities we don’t get to do in the classroom,” comments another teacher. These remarks make all the effort that we put in the sessions worth it.
What they find in Kids Kabin, as I see it, is not just an open opportunity or possibility to be creative. Children, with their bare hands, become designers, builders, cooks, artists, and creators. I remember that we once made Aztec pots out of clay, cooked recipes from the Roman era, built World War I tank models, constructed a miniature Parthenon out of recycled materials, learned how to make a campfire, and many more!
More than the material fruits of their creativity, the life skills they hone in Kids Kabin are more valuable. As a teacher notes, the kids learn “group work, confidence, resilience, creativity, and survival skills.”
As the rest of the feedback we got says, what they find in Kids Kabin is not something that happens on a normal day in school or at home. “Children are able to do things that they may not be taught at home or school.” I do think that much of children’s learning and development happen at school and especially at home. At the same time, I think Kids Kabin complements their development in terms of creativity and life skills in very simple yet – you guessed it – great way.
- Joseph Borres, International Volunteer