At HOPAC Service Learning is highly valued. For older grades, this means weekly class trips into the community and/or on campus service. Primary gears up by developing an understanding of needs and doing smaller service projects.
My class, grade three, gets to focus on disabilities. We visited a craft shop where the workers are people with disabilities. We had Disability Day, where each child was assigned a disability to pretend experience for the day. They have also watched movies and had many in class discussions.
Last Friday we got to go to a hospital in Dar where children with disabilities receive treatment for free. My kids got to tour the facilities. They saw people with cleft palates, missing limbs, bone and face deformities, and more... very eye opening for some. Then my kids got to do a craft with the kids at the hospital, and share a snack of juice and cookies.
My students enjoyed the smiles of the kids getting to color, and were impressed with the talents they saw. They felt sorry for the kids and enjoyed seeing how the hospital helps.
I hope and pray this experience stays in their minds as they grow, especially because these kids at HOPAC have the means, educational and otherwise, to become powerful agents in Tanzania and abroad.
