To begin with I'll explain some of the things I've been doing at my site for the last 6 months I've lived here. Some of the pictures are actually online,
just click here.
One of my jobs while I'm in Thailand is to get to know the community I live in. We call this community integration, but really what I do is say hello to people, eat with them, help them work, and exchange stories about Thailand and America. I spend most days in a Thai Mayor's office, where I work with the government employees in charge of community development, but when I have a slow week I will spent most of my time on my bike visiting people and making new friends. One of the great things about Thailand is that everyone is friendly to strangers. In a small village most people know one another, and they think of strangers as potential new friends. This makes community integration easy for me, everyone is excited to talk to an American who can speak Thai (although I'm very bad at the language), and they have lots of questions.
Every volunteer finds a different role in their community, and a different job to do while their in Thailand, but I've spent time with my Mayor and he and I agree that my job will be to train occupational groups on basic American business practices like managing a business, creating and monitoring a project, and accounting skills.
I also have started two after-school English clubs at two of my local elementary schools where once a week I teach a group of about 30 fifth and sixth graders. Its definitely my favorite part of the week, and the kids are great! I remember when I first formed the group I was very worried after my first class because everyone was SO quiet and almost looked scared. Then I realized most of my students have only seen Americans from afar, and are scared of saying something wrong when they speak English to a native speaker. It took a little bit of time to convince them its okay to make a mistake, and we spend most of our time playing English games.
I also work with the government run daycare centers in three villages on getting the teachers educated on child development, the importance of reading at an early age, and Montessori techniques for teaching the hill tribe children who do not speak the same language as the teachers. We just got back yesterday from a training in Chiang Rai where a local NGO, or non-profit company that helps develop Chiang Rai, showed us successful Montessori daycare centers and instructed my teachers in the basics of Montessori. It was a big success and we're all looking forward to more trainings in the future.
One of my jobs while I'm in Thailand is to get to know the community I live in. We call this community integration, but really what I do is say hello to people, eat with them, help them work, and exchange stories about Thailand and America. I spend most days in a Thai Mayor's office, where I work with the government employees in charge of community development, but when I have a slow week I will spent most of my time on my bike visiting people and making new friends. One of the great things about Thailand is that everyone is friendly to strangers. In a small village most people know one another, and they think of strangers as potential new friends. This makes community integration easy for me, everyone is excited to talk to an American who can speak Thai (although I'm very bad at the language), and they have lots of questions.
Every volunteer finds a different role in their community, and a different job to do while their in Thailand, but I've spent time with my Mayor and he and I agree that my job will be to train occupational groups on basic American business practices like managing a business, creating and monitoring a project, and accounting skills.
I also have started two after-school English clubs at two of my local elementary schools where once a week I teach a group of about 30 fifth and sixth graders. Its definitely my favorite part of the week, and the kids are great! I remember when I first formed the group I was very worried after my first class because everyone was SO quiet and almost looked scared. Then I realized most of my students have only seen Americans from afar, and are scared of saying something wrong when they speak English to a native speaker. It took a little bit of time to convince them its okay to make a mistake, and we spend most of our time playing English games.
I also work with the government run daycare centers in three villages on getting the teachers educated on child development, the importance of reading at an early age, and Montessori techniques for teaching the hill tribe children who do not speak the same language as the teachers. We just got back yesterday from a training in Chiang Rai where a local NGO, or non-profit company that helps develop Chiang Rai, showed us successful Montessori daycare centers and instructed my teachers in the basics of Montessori. It was a big success and we're all looking forward to more trainings in the future.
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