Day #4 Future Centre

Before starting my day with the student, there was a birthday party, it was Saleh or Salooh's birthday a student with down syndrome, there was a cake and drinks, he turned 15 ! I said a happy birthday to him and greeted him by the Emirati way. it was a different day then the others, the students will do an activity outside the class, not a big activity but it has a lot of fun. The activity is how to make an arabic coffee, the student Eissa brought the coffee and the other tools that you will need to deal with like filter. We went to the kitchen and started to do the coffee with them, then went back to the class and waited tell the coffee become cold so everyone could drink it. while we are waiting Mrs. Rachel told the students all steps that we did in the kitchen and she explained it again so the student have to know it, because when they're going back home they will do it by themselves for their families. After explaining the steps of making the arabic coffee it's the time to taste it, I liked it so much and makes you wake up, but some of the students didn't like it because it taste different I think but most of the arabs students like it.

Day #3 Future Centre

Today it was our third day in the volunteering project, so I went there and the students had a sport class then they came to the english class, so they were little tired because of the hot weather and playing some sport to keep their fit great and to have some fun together. They be seated and everyone is exciting about the first part of the class which is the silent moment, Mr. Rachel played a song from youtube and the students should listen to it and imagine things with the song, and then they will have to share it with the rest of the class, it was a great sound track that makes you relaxed and to think about something with little cation, but Hanlon got a very excited idea of this music and he imagine that he can fire a leaser from his eyes and he can blow a track with it! this kid have a big imagination and very crazy and excited ideas.

Then I helped Saleh and I call him "Salooh" by his nickname, a student with down syndrome, I helped him with the english card, I show him a picture and he should know the name of it English, but I taught him in arabic too, then he should choose from the letters in front of him the first letter of the word, and he did very well and I will get him to practice more to have more skills with English.

Then I listen to Fareed while he is reading many story and if he struggled with a word I try to help him, he got done with three stories and get fully understand what is the morals of it, then I asked him to tell me the summaries of the story and it seems like he understand it very well!

Now it comes to the arabic part, I taught fared, Mohamed and Salooh how to write in arabic, first I started with Salooh but he know how to write his name in arabic so he asked me to help him writing his families name, Mansour and his dad and his brother, so I wrote the names first and explained how to say it and what letter in arabic matches in English so he could read more Arabic words, then I do a doted word and they have to match the dotes to practice on writing. Last class I taught Mohamed how to write his name so in this class I taught him something different which how to write his family name in Arabic and this is his paper:

Day #2 Future Centre

After getting my volunteering patch, I went to my class to get going with the students and to help them with their English and anything I could help them with, So, today I'm going to help Eissa AlDh'hari with his story. he got a really good english and if he struggled in any word I would help him with it, He love to read and he need someone to listen to him when he read and his story what about what you do to the people it will come back to you, when he finished 13 pages I started asking him about the story and to make him fully understand of the story and to give me a summary of the story.

So it comes to Hanlon now, and his story today was about the horses and the races and it's an exciting story.

On Monday I promised the class that I will teach them Arabic, There are many arabs student but they have problems with the writing and reading, so as an exciting thing to do, I tought the whole class how to write their names in arabic and they were very excited and happy. Eissa already know how to write his name but I taught him how to write his family's name. and I let them practice writing their name's in Arabic by doting the name and I let them match the dots, then they will have to do it without the dots so they will know to do it. Hanlon told me that he loves the arabic language so I taught how to write his his Mother, Father, and Brother names in arabic and he was very happy, he took the paper and he will show it to his family.   

Day #1 Future Centre

     According to our plan we should start today our volunteering project, First we had a little problem about the place of the centre but at the end we found it and, and I'm so excited start my first day with kids and I was a little nervous to be honest.

     As soon as we got there we signed in and then Mrs. Anjum took us to our classes, I was with Mrs. Rachel a kind woman, when I entered the class there was a silent moment in the class and the reason is because they were misbehaving and laughing and talking with loud voices, so Mrs. Rachel punished the student by a silent moment, when they finished the silent moment I interduce myself to them and I can see how happy and excited they are, then every student introduce himself to me and I notice that they're from different nationalties and different ages but they were happy to see me and the same thing to me, during the silent moment the students should be quiet and Mrs. Rachel played a music and the students should imagine what this song about and to swim in their imagination then they have to share their imagination with the rest of the class, I notice that all of them have a really big imagination! they have really great ideas about the music.

     So, when the students finished the imagination part Mrs. Rachel told me to help Mohamed, Ayqal and Hanlon in the reading part, Mohamed was about 9 years old he read good but he have maybe a little problem with some words and sometimes he can't read for 3 seconds then he continue reading, so I helped him with the hard words, Ayka is a little bit naughty boy but thats how the kids act, I helped him with counting the numbers he wanted to finish quickly but I insist to teach him how to count the numbers and to recognise the dogs and the cats from the pictures. Than, I helped Hanlon with reading his story, he's a cute boy who have down syndrome, he told me that he love to read and I start to chat with him, he knows some arabic word such as Salam Alaikm which is the greetings in Islam and he know Shukrn which means thank you, and what I notice that he know how to write shukrn in arabic, not very good but he tried his best, then I taught him the right way to write shukrn and then I taught him how to write his name in Arabic! he was really happy with it and he's a good boy, then we started to read the story together and in 10 minutes we finished the story, then I helped Tomas and he's very good at reading and have a great british accent, he started reading and I was amazed with his way of reading and the accent and the hard words he can read it with no problems. I'm really glad that I'm helping the kids in the centre and I consider myself as a brother or a friend to them.

Project Plan

1.      Title of plan

Future Centre Volunteering Project

2.      Names of group participants:

 Salem Ali Hasan Mohammed Alhammadi - H00269480

‪ Salah Mubarak Abdullatif Abdulrasool Mohamed - H00269525

 Saif Saeed Saif Sulaiman Almemari - H00269418

 Butti Mohamed Salem Zunaid Alqubaisi - H00269136

 Mohamed Abdulla Salem Maar Alameri - H00269123

3.      Organization (name) and contact person (supervisor + email): 

Future Center for special needs

Contact person: Ms. Anjum Jaffer (Head of Education)

Tel: +971 2 5533506

Email: anjum1@futurecn.ae

4.    Purpose / what do you wish to accomplish?

    This project has many purposes for the target recipients. First of all we are going to try our best to get their trust and we want to help them and we can do this by listening to them, we want from them to learn the basics skills to move with their lives and the skills depends on the need. For example we will teach the blind people how to depend on the other senses to avoid getting hit by things or to walk etc. Second of all we want to spread the awareness about the special needs to other people to know how to deal with them and that will be by showing them the right way to deal with there needs by giving them lessons and classes. The third purpose and I think it’s the most important one, which is to let the students with special needs participate in the community through job training, and by letting them participate with the sport events outside the centre this thing will help them the most because they are humans and they need to be social same as everyone they don’t need to be locked away from everyone. This course try to let us improve our planning skills and in my opinion this is important too for our college life and in our daily life, we will learn how to be on time and everything.

5.    Time/ schedule: students will volunteer for how many hours / week? Days?  

    The Students will volunteer for 5 weeks, 4 hours per week divided into two days to complete 20 hours in total. Starting after the 19^th of Oct.

It will be on Monday and Tuesday from 10:30 to 12:30.

6.    To be successful what need to be done?

    First of all, to be successful in this project we need to learn how to deal with the students in the centre and it will be by getting their trust by listening to them and they will know that we are friendly guys who wants to help. And in the end if we were successful the students will learn some basics skills and they will be comfortable dealing with us and to deal with the community, they will be able to play sports, use some computer programs, and to draw or to paint in the art class. All of this will lead to let the students to be comfortable with the society and people. And it depends on the class level and goals.

7.    What are the Benefits to the participants? (Both volunteers and recipients)

           As volunteers we will get many benefits such as; we will learn about the volunteering and how it will be done, what should we do and who should we contact? And we will learn more about the disabilities and what are their needs, how they face their disabilities, and we will learn how to deal with them because they’re very sensitive and anything could effect badly on them. About the target recipients they will have someone to listen to them and this is the most important thing, they need to tell how good they’re doing and they want some to listen to their thoughts and ideas. They will have the opportunities to improve their skills depending on their needs, they will get many skills using the computer and to play some sports they will have a partner to do it with them, after all they will have the confidence to be involve with others in the centre or outside, in the society and it’s the main purpose. 

8.    Any potential problem you see arising?

    We will face some difficulty during the volunteering project and we will try to pass it. The first problem is getting the students trust because they’re sensitive and anything maybe we see it normal they get hurt by it so we should be careful when we deal with them for the first time, we should get their trust by listening to them and we should be patient. The second problem is the privacy of the centre which it doesn’t allowed you to take pictures you should turn your phone down, because we need the pictures for the project, we will contact with instructor and to find what could we do about and to get the permission to take photos. The third problem is the volunteering time and it’s only in the morning so we need time to go there and come back so maybe we are going to be late on our classes or on the centre but will ask for 15 minutes to go early to the centre and the same thing about the centre so we could be on time.