Volunteers Motivate the Children!

The two volunteers from Barcelona, María José and Eli, finished their poster project for the orphanage! On a poster, they wrote a few rules, disguised as good habits for hygiene and cleanliness, in an interesting and creative way to attract the children! They wrote these rules in English and Hindi (tracing the Hindi that I wrote on the poster for them in pencil), so that the children can understand the rules, and even learn English from the poster when they get older! The rules translated into English also help the volunteers familiarize themselves with the rules and routine of the orphanage. María José and Eli also created a poster with a picture of each child, to help any new volunteers get to know the children, and to show the children how special each one of them is. When the children saw the posters with their photos, they were all enraptured to see how much we all cared about each of these special children. The children also helped mount the posters to the wall, and they were even helping some new volunteers this morning by showing them their routines on the poster! Shyann, one of our volunteers, with María José and Eli, also created some advice for the volunteers to keep in the volunteers' room for helping the orphanage and the children. We will never forget all of the help that these volunteers have given us! Last night, the orphans were very sad to see the volunteers leave, but they were more happy to have spent their time with them, and we will be organizing Skype meetings between them and the volunteers, along with keeping in touch my emails. The volunteers, on their way out, promised to all of the children that they will be back next year, and for even longer than this trip!

This morning, the rest of our volunteers went to the park with the children from the orphanage for some exercises. They helped the children shower when they returned, made sure that each child ate their breakfast, and finally went back to the host family home for lunch. The children don't seem to be too upset that the other volunteers left, though they do miss their good friends from Barcelona and the US. They have the comfort of each other, their caretakers, and the current volunteers with us.