4.+Journal+Entries

= JOURNAL ENTRIES =

JOURNAL #1
====Today I went to Dar el Kods for the first time after the summer break. Dar el Kods is an orphanage in Maadi for disabled children. I went with the group that I plan on working with, Nour Zaki and Khadija El-Leithy. There are seven disabled children at Dar el Kods that are sponsored by Nour’s mother. These include May, a girl who suffers from lower body paralysis, Said and Yossra who suffer from upper body paralysis, Omar who suffers from sudden panic attacks, a second Omar who is partially blind, Mona who is deaf, and Iad who has water in his brain which causes malfunctioning in his body. None of them are older than ten years old. I’ve visited them before, last year. However, I started going to the orphanage towards the end of the year, after the revolution. We weren’t obligated to have a specific project that time because of how much time we lost during the revolution, so I wasn’t really committed to that site. This year though, I plan on making it my service learning project. I am joining Nour and Khadija and we have decided to visit these kids and spend time with them to try and improve each of their disabilities individually. I know that this will not be easy and I know that it will take a lot of time and effort and will require us to manage our time well, which is why we’ve decided to visit the children every Saturday and spend two to three hours with them. ====

JOURNAL #2
====I went to Dar el Kods today and spent three hours with Omar, Omar, Iad, Said, May, Mona, and Yossra. My group and I have come up with another goal along with trying to improve each child’s disability. We are going to teach the children how to express themselves through the use of color. When we first told them to draw something, the illustrations didn’t have much meaning. So we then taught them how to use different shades of color as symbolism to the way they are feeling. For example, light or brighter colors like red and yellow can be used to show happiness or excitement. Darker and duller colors, like brown, black or grey, can therefore be used to express sadness. This method of expressing themselves through color is where we got our project title from: “Reaching Out to the Colors of the Sun”. We got the idea of the sun from Omar, who looked at the colors of the sun and got ideas from it for his drawing. I think this way of teaching is going to be an effective method. It won’t be hard to teach because it doesn’t involve words, just drawings. I think the kids will be very happy with it. We tried it today and there was some progress, compared to the first time we asked the children to draw how they feel. ====

JOURNAL #3
====Today I went to Dar el Kods with my group. We spent about three hours with the children. We brought supplies with us to use for the drawing and coloring we were planning to do with the kids. We had taught them before how to express themselves through the shades of color they use, as in light colors symbolizing happiness and dark colors symbolizing sadness. We reminded each of them that method and they started drawing, with our assistance. It took time for them to focus though, not all of them were cooperating. Also, they got distracted very quickly which was a challenge for us. However, by the end of our stay, we managed to have them draw. There were colors on each page and fortunately a lot of light and bright ones. The children were smiling, and so were we. That is the best part about this project. We make them happy. Even if our goals are progressing slowly, it doesn’t matter because at least there is progress. At least we are making a difference and improving the quality of the service. We understand that it takes time to reach the goals we set, which is why we are being very patient. ====

JOURNAL #4
====Today my group and I went to visit the children at Dar el Kods, and Sarah Dessouki, who has joined our group, accompanied us. It was slightly different today because they separated the boys from the girls so we didn’t see all the children at once. Before we went to the orphanage, we passed by the supermarket and got them some juices, milk, and some snacks. We got the kids some toys as well. Since they weren’t all in the same floor, we had to split what we got in half, so each group got a bag. When we arrived to the room where the girls were, Mona was not there. However, other girls that weren’t part of the group joined. One of them was Hoda. Her disability is that she has speech problems and cannot pronounce words correctly. At first, we could not understand what she was trying to say, but she could understand us. We told her to try and say our names, and she could pronounce the vowels, in our names, which was an improvement from when we first got there. She was very friendly and was always smiling, which made us smile as well. The kids were playing with bubbles and things got out of hand for a short time when they were spilling the soap water everywhere, but we managed to control that. We were also introduced to another child, Soraya, who was an adorable baby. We learned that her disability is that she is very hyperactive and has a weak eye. She too was very friendly and had us smiling the whole time. ====