Jasmen+Abdel+Samie

Health And Hope Oasis Service Learning Table of Contents Reflective Essay – 3 Pages Journal Entry 1-4 Disability Research Action Plan Smart Goal Pictures Reflection Essay My project was with Salma and Lily and our project was based in Health And Hope Oasis and it was a cancer recovery house for people who didn’t have a place to stay and needed to have their medication. It’s about three hours away from Cairo and most of their furniture is donations from CAC and from people and anyone who wanted to donate. We went there for seven hours and we helped make the grass straight and set up the furniture and beds which we learned in the process. There was art painted on the walls with cartoons and hope made by a famous artist who did it for free. One of the projects we do in Cairo is to paint the door numbers for their rooms and the artist is a genius. We trace the numbers on to a wooden platform and then we paint them into different colors so there is a variety of styles. I learned some painting skills for the future with that experience. The Health and Hope Oasis welcomes children from babies to 18 year olds and they can let their family live with them in these houses. They built half of the place and they are building the second half. We went to the site twice for our project since it is dangerous in Egypt so we do some projects in Cairo for them. We actually got to meet some of the children on the second visit and we found out that their siblings were also there and they acted like normal children living their life. We were actually one of the first visitors to see the patients staying with their family there. Around six families came and had around two or three siblings with them. They only stayed for the weekend though because they had to go back to their homes until they officially left to go live there. They only had an Arabic sign so the people who couldn’t read Arabic couldn’t understand it so we made a sign in English with the same drawing for four hours. It turned out fine and the board member loved it. Service learning really helped me because it was hard for me to plan at first and now I know how many hours are needed to be spent on one project. There are hundreds of files of cancer patients that are only in hard copies and if lost then they couldn’t find it again so they scan the files onto the computer and save it so if they ever need it they could just print it. There are three desks so we split the files into 4 each. Another project that I do is the Sudanese Refugee School which we went for two hours to three hours. When I walk into the Sudanese Refugee School, I see smiles and kids talking to their friends like any person would do at school and that makes me happy to see that they have hope. When they are being taught something, they listen and they aren’t impatient when they don’t understand something. When I was there I worked with a group of children in art and we had to do some collages. I didn’t know how to get their attention at first because they would just talk to each other instead and some were really shy. I got their attention at some point though and when I did they didn’t want show their art skills even though one of them was really talented drew one of the best drawings I have ever seen. My drawings looked awful compared to theirs but surprisingly they didn’t want to keep it when I asked them if they wanted to take it home. Another project that I have enjoyed was seeing the difference between the Cancer hospitals that were complete opposites. The first one we visited was rundown, dirty and hardly taken care of. The patients looked miserable because of the condition they were in and the rooms were crowded with families and the entrance wasn’t very pleasing because there was a torn couch and it looked like it hasn’t been visited for years. The children were nice though and it was relieving to see them smile when we gave them their food and a toy they could play with. They had a sign of hope but even the nurses were hungry because they tried to take away the food too. During that experience, I learned how to work with a group while making the food and I had the joy of seeing them smile. The other hospital though didn’t feel like a hospital at all. It was full of colors and everything about it was clean and it got this new kind of hope. The whole place was protected because of anyone even has a cold, the patient could die if it got contact because of their immune system. If one of us had a cold, we weren’t allowed to see the patients then because then we would infect them so sadly I had a cold when I visited and I couldn’t see them. They had playrooms where they could play and the place was built on donations and it was free so any family could go only if they weren’t treated by another hospital. I didn’t go to the hospital again but I helped sort out the donated clothes for 2 hours so we can send it to the patients. Some people bought some children clothes for them and it was wonderful to see. We sorted them out by splitting it for females and males. There were clothes that were hard to choose which gender it was because it would sometimes be for both. Overall, it was an amazing experience and I can honestly say that I have more knowledge now then when I entered the Service Learning class on the first day. The number of people I have met with different stories is unbelievable. I can’t wait to do this again next year. Journal Entry 1 On November 18th 2011, my partners and I went to a cancer recovery house that is for free for anyone under 18 with their family. All of the furniture was donations from different charities and schools. I was expecting a dirty, broken down treatment house with barely any furniture but I was surprised to see that it was well furnished with more than 60 rooms and colorful painted walls. No one has settled in yet because the other half is still being built and there will be medication provided for the patients. The only problem about the treatment house is the location because it is 2 hours away from Cairo so they are away from everything. We helped with the gardening and built two beds for each room. I had trouble with the gardening because I never did it before and I thought I wasn’t doing it right but then I saw how Lily and Salma were doing it and then I started to know how to do it. I wanted to meet some of the cancer patients because it would have added to the service experience. One of the most famous painters in Egypt painted the walls for free so i found that interesting that he would use his free time to help people in need and to brighten someone’s day. I actually thought that we were going to help the children there and paint walls but it was still helpful with the gardening. CAC actually donated some of the furniture to them. She showed us a picture of how it would look like when it was completely done and I hope that I can see it one day. It took them 10 years to do this project and hopefully this year they start to get some families to come and stay. There was a really nice and creative idea that one of the members thought of is that they would write the person’s name on the wall with the art whenever someone died, and I thought that was really creative and thoughtful. Journal 2 My next project was on February 18th and on our last visit me and my partners saw that there was only an Arabic sign so we decided to make an English one so everyone could read it. The head manager that started all this decided to give us a copy of the English one she made so we could replicate it but onto a bigger board. We did it on a white board and she said that she would put glass over it so it wouldn’t get ruined with the dust and rain. The design is a picture of a big tree with children making a circle around it with smiles and the title is at the bottom. We got the right colors and thankfully Lily was an artist so she drew them while we colored them after she was done because we didn’t want to mess it up. It took us around three hours to finish to make it perfect and it looked like the copy she gave us so I was really happy about that. One of the struggles was finishing the paint before we were done because the tree took a huge amount of the paint and we needed the paint for the children’s clothes too. We also didn’t know what to color the children since we didn’t have the skin color so we chose the closest color which was yellow but it didn’t look bad at the end. The board was thankfully stiff and strong enough so we weren’t too worried about that because it was hard to find a white board that was strong enough so we had to go to another store to find one. It was fun to make the board though and I was glad that we even thought of the idea just by visiting the place. We were scared that it was going to get ruined before it became dry so we were guarding it while we were there. We did it at Lily’s house since her house was the closest to the stationary. Journal 3   We decided to go visit the artist in Cairo and help him with this project. His workshop is in Maadi and it is five to 10 minutes away from school so we didn’t have any struggles of getting there. Hassan joined us this time to paint the door numbers though so we had more people participating. When you enter the workshop, it is filled with art and there isn’t a single space in the workshop with no art. There is more than one artist there and they teach students how to paint and draw there. He had a model of a door number so we could know how he wants us to do it and it was fairly easy. The paint was permanent though so we had to be careful or else it would stain our clothes. We visited the place twice and each visit we spent two hours there. They were only single digits and each number had a face on it since it was for children so the imagination and creativeness was there. The numbers were drawn on wooden boards that were shaped like the number so we had to match them together. The first time we went there we only painted the wooden boards white since we couldn’t draw the numbers yet and then we had to sand them to make them smooth. We couldn’t paint it all at once so we painted the front first then let it dry and then the back with the sides. On our second visit though we drew the numbers on them and painted them in different colors. There were only three different colors red, green and blue and he didn’t want us to mix them but he wanted the same number but with three different colors. We didn’t get to outline them with black though because we had to wait till it dried with the colors. My second visit though was my last visit s ince it was May and the school year was almost done so I couldn’t finish the rest of the work.

Journal 4



Our last visit to the Health and Hope Oasis center was on May 12th. We spent 10 hours that day and we actually got to see the children and the family. We were the first visitors because they came for one weekend and it was the first time that anyone came in ten years. There were six families and they all had different kinds of cancer. There was a fifteen year old who had leg cancer, which I have never heard about but she could still walk and move but sometimes would limp. Most of the children that were there were wearing hats but their hair was starting to grow and they had two or three siblings with them.

They were at the stage where they had to eat healthy food in order to recover and be treated as a normal child, which was easier than I expected because you wouldn’t know they had cancer if you saw how they acted. The place looked different from when we visited in November. There was another person who was in charge and she actually studied medicine and was going to be a doctor but she decided to help with this project.

There is going to be a center there for people who have no hope of surviving and can spend their last few months there enjoying life accepting death. The grass grew since the last time we went there and they had a playroom for the children, which they spent most of their time there. We helped the children draw and color the pictures that were provided and help clean the place after they left. The problem with that place was that there was no air condition so it was super hot. The children would have fights with each other about sharing so we had to help them learn how to share simple things and take turns.

Disability research Dyslexia is a reading disability that happens when the person can’t recognize some letters or numbers that they are reading. Another name for Dyslexia is DRD which stands for development reading disorder. Children usually get it at an early age so if they detect it at an early age then it will be easier for them to read in the future. Children may get depression and low self-esteem because of their reading disability at school. There are several types of Dyslexia like Trauma Dyslexia which happens when an injury occurs to the reading and writing part of your brain. Another type is when the left side of the brain isn’t working and it usually stays like that forever. Boys get it more than girls and they hardly know how to read. Primary Dyslexia and Usually, people that have Dyslexia have normal intelligence or higher so it doesn’t affect it. Dyslexia is usually genetic so you can get it at an early age. They usually have trouble of understanding some sentences that they read and rhyming words. It is not only in reading but with math too because the numbers look alike. To find out if you have Dyslexia or not, the health department usually gives a medical exam and ask that questions that might be the reason for Dyslexia like for example; if anyone had dyslexia in the family and their development and social performance in school. There is no actual treatment because they will have it all their life but you can control it by taking special classes and extra help.

** Action Plan ** ** Target Problem ** : To finish fixing The Health And Hope Oasis Center. ** Target Group ** : The children with Cancer. ** Project Title ** : The Health And Hope Oasis ** Goals : ** ** Smart Goal 1 ** : Paint the door numbers and the sign. ** Smart Goal 2 ** : Meet the Cancer patients. ** Smart Goal ** 3: Set up the rooms and finish gardening. ** Obstacles ** : Transportation Paint the white board without messing up. Make the sand smooth and straight to plant the grass. ** Tasks ** : Meet the Artist and get the paint to paint the Sign and get the copy of the english sign. Help finish the first half of the center so the children could come before the end of the year. Take the stones out of the sand so it can be smooth for planting and make the beds for the rooms. SMART Goal S pecific: Our goal is to help set up and finish constructing half of the cancer recovery house which is called Health and Hope Oasis. Another Goal is to meet the patients before the year ends. M easurable: I will know when I have achieved the goal when we actually meet the children and when the place is painted,the rooms are done and the grass is grown. The half will be completed and they would need to finish the other half. A chievable: Yes, this is something I want to do because I want them to have a home. Yes it will be challenging considering the distance and finishing the place in time but I think I can accomplish it. R ealistic: The goal is within my capability, resources and authority and the obstacles and sacrifices are that I will need a ride for transportation there and I will have to know how to paint well in order not to mess up and to learn some new skills for gardening. T imely: We are going to spend eight to 10 hours at the site and it takes two hours for transportation to go there. We spend three hours on painting things for the project here in Cairo and spend five hours scanning the patients files.