Changing a life: meet Nikita

Nikita has Spina Bifida and is 11 years old. She had been a student at Children’s Paradise Preschool, a centre run by Buntty Gurung that assists children with disabilities, from the age of 22 months until recently when her family wanted to give a mainstream school a try. Unfortunately the school wasn’t a great fit for someone with Nikita’s special needs. Nikita has very limited movement and sensation from the waist down, which makes it very hard for her to get around. The only wheelchair she has access to was made for a full grown man, which means she cannot reach the wheels to use it on her own. Due to these issues Nikita needs help throughout the day just to get around.

The staff at the mainstream school have not been taught how to assist a student with such disabilities and the students are uneducated on children that are physically different from themselves. This left Nikita in a very sad and awkward position at her new school. Her parents withdrew her from class as they learned of these problems arising. Not sure what to do next with their daughter, they left her at home with a family member to watch television or, when no power, to sit in the sun and to watch her little brother go to school every day. Nikita’s education stopped.

Buntty continued to stay in touch with Nikita’s family hoping that she could help them find a solution. Then GVI arrived! Buntty had stated from the start that she’d like our volunteers to work one-on-one with the special needs children at her preschool and she explained what was happening with Nikita. She asked if she could convince Nikita’s parents to bring her back to Children’s Paradise would we work with her. Of course the answer was “Yes! Absolutely yes!”

After we’d met with Nikita’s family, and Buntty continued to discuss the options with them, we finally received the amazing news that Nikita would be returning. Her parents have signed her up through a private program that will let her sit her exams and study at her grade. To say Nikita is flourishing would be an understatement. Ady was our first volunteer to begin working one-on-one with Nikita, slowly assessing her levels in subjects, having fun with arts and crafts, and helping her to interact and socialize with others again.

Ruth, our Project Manager and a Physiotherapist, has put together a basic exercise plan for Nikita to do with the volunteers to help her work on her upper and lower body strength. Volunteer Adele has now started with Nikita and will take over when Ady leaves. The girls are constantly noticing an improvement with Nikita’s confidence and can see how happy she is to be studying again. The highlight of our visits to the centre is seeing Nikita’s huge smile and her passion for learning. When discussing with Adele what her favourite thing about her project was she replied “Knowing that if it wasn’t for us Nikita wouldn’t be getting an education. It really feels like we’re making a difference.”

It’s not only making a difference for Nikita but also for Buntty. She takes in and treats each child as her own and her heart was breaking over Nikita missing out on so much. Now you can’t wipe the smile of Buntty’s face every time Nikita’s name is mentioned.

Changing a life: meet Nikita

Cap Ternay Challenge raises money for the Charitable Trust

Cap Ternay Staff and Volunteers took part in a day of amazing challenges to raise funds and awareness for the Presidents Village children’s home. The Presidents village children’s home has been the charitable trust for GVI Seychelles for around 3 years, each quarter staff and volunteers organise a fund raising event to help fund the children’s home. 

This February the ‘Cap T Charity challenge’ saw teams race across the island on point scoring missions in the hopes of becoming Cap T Champions!  Each team containing 1 staff member and up to 6 volunteers was given ten hours and a list of over 50 challenges to complete, each challenge earning different points depending on its difficulty.  As the day progressed we saw team members scaling up mountains, leaping over waterfalls and swimming across to islands! Some of the less physical challenges sent team members off on searches for some of the Seychelles rarer inhabitants such as the Giant Tortoise and Scops Owl. 

When the Cap Ternay volunteers are not completing such challenges they get to enjoy quality time with the children from the president’s village during our weekly snorkel lessons and quarterly activities day.  The money raised by such events is key in allowing the children to enjoy additional experiences such as a trip away or even providing essentials such as shoes and swimwear. 

To date the Cap T Challenge has raised over £1700 for the Charitable trust which is an incredible amount and couldn’t have been achieve without the help of all the staff and volunteers and generosity of their friends and family

For more information on GVI Seychelles and the projects please visit http://www.gvi.org/education-for-abused-neglected-and-orphaned-children-seychelles

Cap Ternay Challenge raises money for the Charitable Trust

Playhouse at Ikhayalethemba

Creative play is an important part of our programme at Ikhayalethemba Village. The great thing about creative play is that children develop their social skills; interacting, talking and sharing. This play is also so essential to the development of children’s physical skills, language and problem solving.  One of our key goals at Ikhayalethemba is for the children to develop strong English skills and through Creative play children have many opportunities to develop their English language.

When we had some financial donations for Ikhayalethemba just prior to Christmas, we decided to put it toward a playhouse for the children. A playhouse provides an opportunity for children to role play and to interact with each other in a positive way. It is a wonderful opportunity for children to engage in Creative play. We decided that the playhouse would be a Christmas present from Father Christmas.

There was great excitement at Ikhayalethemba when Father Christmas’ present arrived early.  The children looked on with anticipation as a van drove up and in the back were large wooden shapes.  They sat as a group to watch their gift unfold.  It wasn’t long before the children could recognise that the shapes were going to make a playhouse. As the workers put the playhouse together the children sat attentively. Once they realised what it was going to be, they started planning what they could put in it.  The carers were joking that they would put their own beds in there to sleep, much to the amusement of the children.

Once the house was erected, the workers stained it and so the children had to wait to explore for an hour and a half whilst it dried.  They did this well and managed to line up an array of things that they thought would be suitable to use inside the house.  Already the children’s creativity was kicking in!

Since that first day the children have loved their playhouse. They have developed all sorts of role play situations and it’s lovely to see them play so cooperatively.  It made a great stable for our Christmas Nativity and many of our class lessons have been done inside the playhouse.

If you would like to support this project, please see our project page for ways to make a donation. You can also subscribe to the GVI Charitable Trust blog to get regular updates, or follow us on twitter. 

Playhouse at Ikhayalethemba

Candle Making in Tsavo West national park in Kenya

In 2006, three communities bordering Tsavo West national park who were well renowned for their reliance on illegal bush meat, made the courageous decision to give up poaching for the protection of wildlife. Their move away from poaching, was initiated with an intervention from the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) trying to extirpate inhumane ways of killing animals. WSPA has strongly supported the formation of several officially registered community based organisations. In 2006 GVI started assisting these groups in partnership with the WSPA. At the end of 2012 GVI was up in Tsavo supporting the community group in Kaasani a village of not more than 100 people. The group in Kaasani for instance, has a classic set-up and consists out of key players within the community, mostly former poachers themselves who are well able to be factors of change.

Most former poachers and their families have never been involved in activities other than poaching or farming. They have little knowledge or skills relevant to other income generating activities and are aware of few other economic opportunities besides poaching. With a high level of poverty, the development of alternative livelihoods is the only resilient way to protect and conserve local wildlife. From this realisation in 2006 there came an economic development strategy which now includes alternative livelihoods that vary from bee keeping to an eco-tourism centre. From 2007 until now, GVI volunteers have helped the Kaasani community group to teach basic English, write proposals, develop business skills, promote organic farming methods, beekeeping, sunflower farming chicken farming. Those initiatives have had varying success; the level of English and basic trading has improved much, but the bee-hives were destroyed by a herd of over 150 elephants in 2010 and the chicken farming stopped as chicken feed prices climbed with the recent world food crisis in 2011. Candle making, perhaps one of the more out-of-place initiatives, is however becoming a big success.

Recently the Kasaani group had a large order for candles. The handmade candles are sold in tourist gift shops along the coast of Kenya. The candles have a distinct natural feel and look and once finished they are packed in a small cardboard box made out of a mixture of elephant dung and old paper. The flattened out and dried elephant dung mixture is cut it into labels and then attached to the candles as well. The materials are costing next to nothing but the cards and boxes – and quite likely the explanation on the flip-side of the label – seem to add crucial value to the finished product.

“The money we have raised through this order will be divided amongst the families of Kasaani and will provide us with food and water for some time to come. Thank you to GVI for showing us how to make these products in a much more effective way. Next time we will complete such an order in two days!”- John Mandu village chairman

The Kasaani group is already beginning to receive more orders, and the market for such handicrafts seems sustainable enough, for now at least, to keep the bush meat trade at bay.

GVI works in partnership with Tsavo pride (http://www.tsavopride.com) in this area and more updates and goings on from the field are available on our blog site (http://gvikenya.blogspot.com). To support this project, please see outproject page!

Candle Making in Tsavo West national park in Kenya

Monkey Business

The early morning air breaks with haunting howls, and the forest is filled with squeaks, chirps, barks and screams as the monkeys of Tortuguero National Park (TNP) begin to wake up. Apart from providing endless entertainment by jumping through the tree tops, socially interacting, or trying to pee or poo on someone (at which they have fairly accurate aim), these monkeys are key indicators of the forest health in this region. Three of Costa Rica’s four species of monkeys are residents within TNP, a protected area along the Caribbean coast. The white-throated capuchin (Cebus capucinus), mantled howler monkey (Alouatta palliata) and Central American spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi) coexist in harmony due to their slightly different feeding strategies, and can be found foraging in the same locations. Due to its endangered status, the Central American spider monkey has been sighted by MINAE as a species of interest, leading GVI Jalova to create a pilot study to monitor their distribution and density in the park area as part of our current Incidentals project.

The extension to our Incidentals project was started in September 2012. The study consists of five line transects along pre-existing trails that incorporate most of the survey area. Each transect covers a 1km distance that is surveyed over the course of approximately one hour. During this time, if spider monkeys are sighted, information regarding numbers, age, sex, gender and location are collected. Since the project started, 57 surveys have been conducted, and 56 spider monkey observations have resulted from these surveys. Of the individuals identified 51% of them have been females, 17% dependent young, 7% independent young, and only 3% males. Over the course of observation time spider monkeys have been seen on all the trails, but their distribution range has yet to be determined.

So far the results show that our area of TNP appears to have a healthy population of spider monkeys. The hope, as data continues to be collected, is that it will become easier to ascertain group sizes of the residents in the area and their density. In addition to the current study the future goals include comparing the number of spider monkeys in relation to the white-throated capuchin and mantled howler monkeys, and better understand the species of their foraging trees along with fluctuations based on food sources. Future developments may include looking more closely at the social behaviour of commonly seen spider monkeys.

If you would like to read more about protecting the rainforest in Costa Rica, please see our project page our blog, twitter or feel free to contact us for more information.

Monkey Business

A new Mini Library at Wat Pasa Viet

Do you remember when you discovered the joy of reading?

The power of a book to open doors to another world?

A proud achievement of GVI Laos for December 2012 was the installation of a small library in one of our classrooms at Wat Pasa Viet. A plan made between Satu Porgi, the late and respected Abbot of Wat Pasa Viet and the Manager of Laos GVI to establish a library at the temple has been fulfilled on a small scale at this stage. Whilst starting off small with one cane bookshelf stocked with reference, non-fiction and fiction books kindly donated, this small beginning sets the scene of things to come. Novice Jailee, a conscientious student and Novice holds the position of Head Librarian with Novice Jasmin being the assistant librarian.

Most students in Laos learn to read from a teacher with a blackboard. The school may have some shared textbooks, but many children have never seen a book. Certainly they've never owned one, and they've never had a chance to discover the fun and power of reading. Wat Pasa Viet Novices are now the custodians of over 80 books. GVI Laos is proud of this achievement that increases the capacity for success in expanding the future opportunities of our students.

A new Mini Library at Wat Pasa Viet

Fiji 2012 Education review and goals for 2013

As the 2012 school year closed and the 2013 year began, the GVI Education team can now reflect on the progress and achievements made during the first full academic year completed at Ratu Meli Memorial School (RMMS).

Throughout this academic year there have been several key developments in the Education Program which have resulted in positive changes at RMMS. Literacy levels have improved across the whole school and international volunteers have helped foster new enthusiasm for reading, boosting the confidence of the pupils. The one-on-one tuition program now provides ongoing support to pupils with learning difficulties and over the last year has ensured that 26 pupils are no longer as far behind their peers. School environment improvements, including a new computer lab, have created a more stimulating learning environment for the pupils and a number of health initiatives have improved nutrition, sanitation and the availability of fresh water.

In order to successfully develop and improve the education program at RMMS in 2013, GVI asked the class teachers and headmaster to complete a questionnaire and participate in feedback sessions with GVI staff. The teachers’ response was extremely positive, particularly with respect to the increased confidence they have observed in their pupils when speaking English. All the teachers described how the additional support offered by GVI appointed class volunteers has alleviated the pressure of their workload and broadened the experience of the students. In addition, the teachers highlighted the impact the one-on-one program has had on the slow learners and that they would not normally have sufficient time to provide individual support to students who are furthest behind in their classes. All of the teachers articulated their thanks for GVI’s contribution to the school’s infrastructure with the improvements to the toilet block, library and classrooms. 

Overall it has been a successful year for the GVI Education Program. The relationship between GVI and RMMS is cemented and has proven to be productive. Pupils, teachers and volunteers have responded positively and with enthusiasm to the teaching assistance program delivered.  GVI Fiji is dedicated to providing long-term support and despite the successes of this year, there is still work to be done at RMMS.  The Education Program will continue to evolve next year, building on the achievements of 2012 and working towards a new set of objectives to continue enriching the education provided at RMMS.

Objectives for next year

In collaboration with the RMMS community, GVI have established a set of core objectives that will shape the program in 2013

• Maintaining a strong relationship with the school and new headmaster, increasing collaborative planning between the school and GVI.

• Continued improvement of all existing initiatives including reading programmes, IT programmes and one-on-one support scheme

• Introducing an extra-curricular program to deliver a more holistic education program at RMMS. Giving the pupils the opportunity to develop new skills in drama, music and arts & crafts.

• Incorporating the new Classroom-Based Assessment system introduced into the daily GVI program.

• Supporting ‘professional development schemes’ by providing teacher training workshops in collaboration with other local schools, including a basic computer-training program.

• Continuing to increase the use of visual aids used at RMMS to make lessons more stimulating for pupils

• Implementation of International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance Blue School Initiative 
  

-                Water and sanitation improvements, including additional RWH systems and compost toilets in time for the next dry season

-                Waste management plan

-                Health and Hygiene, Environmental Protection and Peace and Tolerance awareness lessons

• Expanding Nutritional Improvement Program, using the framework for ‘Nutriton-Friendly Schools’ developed by the World Health Organisation.

• Fundraising through the Charitable trust and localized schemes to make ongoing improvements to the school environment

To find out more about this project and to donate, check out our project page for Education for Underprivileged Children in Fiji. Follow the Charitable Trust or GVI Fiji on twitter @GVICT & @GVIFIJI

Fiji 2012 Education review and goals for 2013