Jan 9th Service Day of Learning Project
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| Welcome to El Hogar El Alba |
Today was a day based on giving, giving back to a community and a
group of young deserving kids. A day spent with children in need of happiness
and joy. Our travel to Hogar El Alba started early, being on the bus at 8:25
giving us an hour to get the orphanage so that our work could begin.
Upon arrival, we broke the day up into 3 parts, part one was paint
work. We split up into four different groups. Each group had their own projects
to complete, such as painting the church, a house, the main building front wall
and the entrance mural. I was lucky enough to be part of the mural group. Our
job was to paint a colorful fun picture of the kids, something that is welcoming
and represents El Hogar El Alba as a whole on the right side and on the left
side we were to repaint the name. For the name side, we decided to added a
little Argentine spin with making the background look like their flag. While on
the other side we let our creative juices flow a little more. We drew children
hanging out together, under a rainbow as shown below. From there we processed
to add hand prints on the pillars of both sides of the mural to symbolized human life and present a sign of belief, energy, hope and strength.
To quote a few students and Professor Berdiev, whom I worked with on the
murals-
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| right side |
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| left side |
Ailene- “Having the opportunity to give back to others in such a
way has been a truly unforgettable experience. I’ve never really painted before
but after the mural I worked on today I feel like an expert”
Jaden- “Painting didn’t feel like work today, it was fun and
enjoyable! I knew what we were doing was something great for these kids and it
turned out great”
Tyler- “It felt really good helping out kids not as privileged as
I. After painting the sign for the entrance, I knew our hard works was going to
put a smile on the kids’ faces”
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| This is my group of artists! We come together to design a colorful, fun mural to welcome all kids to El Hogar El Alba |
Berdiev- “I was very much looking forward to coming here. I
enjoyed painting with my students. Making it a memorable experience”
Part two was lunch time, where we all enjoyed hot, right out of
the oven empanadas. Followed by a history lesson, in which we learned all about
El Hogar El Alba and what it represents. El Hogar El Alba is a 92-year-old institution founded by the pastor and
educator William C. Morris located in Ministro Rivadavia, Buenos Aires. His work and hope for
this institution was governed by many Argentine Schools as well as Philanthropic
Institutes. El Hogar El Alba was designed to help protect, house and also educate
children who are found in bad situations of social and family risk, both
physical and psychological violence, lack of love, drugs, sexual abuse, and
other terrible things. The stories they judge hear are extremely sad and
horrid. They remove the kids from their homes and bring them here. El Hogar El
Alda is semi funded by the government, but they run mostly off donations that
come in few and far between.
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| Mi and mi Amiga |
The idea behind
the El Hogar El Alba is focused on the attention of children with violated
rights. These issues are then addresses through two specific developmental programs
called ALDEA and ALBORS. The ALDEA Program is made up of many houses that are scattered throughout a
plant. Each home can house around 12 to
14 children, depending on size. These are home prefer to keep siblings
together, avoiding any distinction between sex or age. The ALDEA program is
supposed to be a representation substitute parents for minors who have been
removed by judges from their families and homes due to extremely violated
rights, such as to study, health even the loss of an identity/ no identity at
all. Children brought to El Hogar El Alba may not have been registered, given a
birth name or an acknowledged birthday. Blank, head of Hogar said “a person without
a birthday is barely a person.” So now it is their job to rebuild a person, not
just give a house and food to them, but to give them a name, a birthday and to
make them apart of a family. The ALBORES
Program, is an agricultural training program that takes place in the TAMBO
SCHOOL. The plan for this program is to try and avoid children from
hospitalization. Adolescents aging from 12-18 who do not live at home are primarily
the ones found in this program. Right now there are about 100 teens who attend
the program. It was designed to help young teens learn different occupations
such as electricity, bakery, blacksmith, handy works contracts. The hope
is to give them tools in which will allow them to handle and be in a society where
they can work and create a life for themselves.
Lastly, a newer
program they have implemented within the last three years is to help children with
drug issues. They help to remove them from drug full environments starting at
the age of 16 to professionally help them overcome the problem and better the
future selves.
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| Helmuth and his new buddy getting ready to play a game of football |
Part three was the best part, we got the chance to play a variety
of games with all 20 kids who were their today ranging from ages 4 to 16. We
played basketball, soccer, ran around a little and after a few hours in the
sun, we ended up all jumping in the pool to cool off and swim around. Unfortunately,
the way I ended up in the pool was not as easy as jumping in, I had a little
boy come up to me, take off my sunglasses, give someone else my phone, undid my
sneakers and then proceeded to pull me towards the pool so that he could push
me in. I will say it was quite refreshing. Once in the pool I was greeted by
two little girls who each hope on both sides of my hips and wanted me to take
them around the pool, from there we did had a few jumps in and challenges to
see who could hold their breaths under water the longest, I of course did not
win that competition.
This experience was a variety of things- hard work, historical,
fun and full of love. Seeing how happy we made those kids just by being there
today was heartwarming. Knowing that we were able to be a part of a community
much bigger than ourselves, helping to not only make a difference on the buildings
with our handy work but also to bring a day of joy to those kids was an
extremely rewarding feeling. It made the day real eye opening to how fortunate
we Bryant students truly are and a memorable experience that will be with us
forever.
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| This was our group photo with all the kids after a long day of playing in the sun #Bulldogs |
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