What do you think can be a long-term impact of a children-related community service?

Question

I have a community service project, an assignment from my school. I and my group am going to do things with children. What do you think can be a long-term impact and how to do it? Like, what skills to teach them that can last for a long term...

Answer 1

They will learn responsibility, value of work and helping out the community and people in need. This gives everday people the chance to be positive role models to people who really need them in their life and can change the direction of people who are less fortunate. The long-term impact will be that of creating more people who care and a sense of selfless service which will bring good karma.

Answer 2

If the children are very young then anything at this age has a great impact. Kids love color and if you are on a math project include patterns and colors. If it is for reading make them become part of the story.( Make sure you pick a happy one) On art and music let them be as creative as possible and show them the many tools used in music and art. As far as all around learning, teach them to listen and be sure to listen to them. Kids love to know that they are being heard and are a special somebody. There are so many skills to learn out there and one child will be faster at one and another child will be faster at another. Just play it by ear where each one is coming from and take it from there. A nice thing to teach them is that they will get ahead a bit better in life with a smile and a thank you rather then being mouthy and pushy. Kindness is always a plus. The best thing I think is to show them that they are capable and can do anything they set their minds to. Give them a "I can do it" attitude. Good luck and have fun with this project. It sounds like it will be a fun one.

Answer 3

Something as simple and nice as teaching them how to do something like make jewelry, clay beads, origami, or some other craft could have a long-term impact because it will teach them a way to entertain themselves (or maybe even put their work in craft fairs) that they'll always know.

Many times in community service programs there are children with parents with little money. Sometimes, too, they're even homeless. Don't make the mistake that a school in my area made, though, when high school students went to read to the children in shelters (as if the children's mothers didn't read to them). Don't equate lack of money with mothers who are horrendously ignorant because the two don't always go together. Either way, the best thing you could do for children in deprived circumstances would be to treat them as if they're "regular".

Answer 4

Hi Sylvdoanx,

Reading is the best thing you can do for any child no matter what age, boy or girl. Reading has a long term affect on all children & even on some adults. Also doing volunteer work of anything, or place. Good luck with assignment & have a good day!

Answer 5

I am staying in a suburb of Delhi. A road construction was started in my neighbouhood. Migrant labour from distant interior of Madhya Pradesh was working. Their huts were by the roadside with their childred,domestic animals and the paraphenalia. The children were just loitering about during the day when their parents were away on work. I gathered them togethered initially for just telling stories. Then I slowly started teaching. It was a roadside school just by their hutments on open footpaths.As an experiments I started teaching them through English medium. As they were grown up boys and girls instead of beginning at the beginning alphabets I directly led them into words and then came to alphabets.Then slowly started teaching reading and writing beginning with poetry.The school books etc. of course I had to finance. The students who did not know their own native tougue very well amazingly picked up English very quickly and nicely.Teaching conditions were far from ideals.The classes were held on footpaths in the morning and the time was the severe cold season and all the traffick disturbances of thorouhfares but the students concentration was wonderful. The classes could go on for six months because one find morning when I went to the school I did not find the students nor their huts or their elders. They had all moved on who knows where or on what project. I can't say I transformed their lives but I found that the students had an intrinsic liking for education and could pick up the language skills quite quickly.I hope this interlude made some positive impact on their lives.When I conveyed my experience in thie 'failed' experiments in papers I received so many encouraging responses from all over that I was overwhelmed feeling for a moments at least that I have performed an epic-making feat. I for one feel that instead of waiting for and blaming the government we could at our level do much to help the deprived children.

Answer 6

1. Most children today were stuck in warehouses.....and they are called day care centers.

2. These kids were put in a room usually about 15 to 25 per room with 1 or 2 daycare workers who are paid very little above minimum wage if that.

3. These kids sat in dirty diapers....much longer, and could never be picked up and taken care of with 15 to 25 others needing the same attention.

4. These kids then become "latch key" kids who go home to an empty apartment or empty home.

5. These kids are poor and rich....same scenario except some daycare is free, and some is rather expensive.

6. These kids get on the internet at a young age.

7. These kids want...personal attention.

8. These kids feel angry and unloved.

9. These kids do what's "in" to their peers. Right now, in 2006, it's cutting/self-mutilation and underage drugs and alcohol.

10. Your guess is as good as mine as to what skills they need........................Perhaps the answer is the skill to lower their anger level....just listen to their "emo" music...and listen to their words, "mf" and the "n" word for some who are a little "tan".

What can you teach them except they resent their parents for abandoning them, but they don't tell you that.

They just tell you to leave them alone, when you find the multiple scars on various parts...and they admit cutting/self-mutilation, or drugs and/or alcohol abuse.

Answer 7

Scouting was at one time a noble way of teaching our youth initiative, responsibility and civic pride/duty. As long as you keep the weird stuff out... Some of the core values involved in these activities can have a lasting impact. As a bonus, there is usually a progression involved (guidebooks or something) so most of the planning time would be material procurement and scheduling. I don't know if that fits into the time frame of your project.

Answer 8

Is it a 1-time thing or will you be seeing them over a period of time? There are lots of things you could do that would have a long term impact. You could teach them how to sew small ditty bags for the local womens shelter. The shelter can put soap and shampoo in the bags so that each woman can have her own toiletries. Or you could plant things together, either in pots or someone's garden.

Answer 9

First, you need to remember that as children, they are primarily data sponges, without the ability to conceptualize thought process. That doesn't even begin to develop until puberty or later.

How about just teaching them to be children? To use their imaginations for fun? Driving children to be anymore than children is creating a culture of burn outs early in adult life.

Instead, demonstrate to the school that we are seeing the emergence of a new species of human, of which you may already be a part, where we are longer livings, but developing and maturing slower. The time may come when children don't even begin school until age 10 or later.

Answer 10

whn i was a student and had to do community projects with children, the biggest challenge we faced was in ensuring that they improved in their education. since they went to poor schools, which had a lot of students, few teachers and no infrastructre, they lagged bahind than the rest of the community in eduction. so we divided them in batches according to age groups and took their classes. it was part of our effort to ensure that they do not drop out of education by the time they came to the national level exams.

the 2nd thing that we did was to get each child to explain their parent's trade. this way every1 got a chance of learning different trades. so if 4 children had parents who were carpenters, for the next 2 days they wud coach the rest of the class on how to make furniture, how to repair, wht precautions to take, etc..
we just taught the methodology, and gave the students liberty to choose and become perfectionists later.

all the best. whatever u decide, it will be an amazing learning experience for u. u'll have to manage in scarce resources, and mostly think of the most cost-effective alternatives.