MARI KALDMAE  EUROOPA SOLIDAARSUSKORPUS/ EUROPEAN SOLIDARITY CORPS

Name: Mari Kaldmäe

Age: 28 years old

Region/City: Tartu, Tartumaa

 

 

 

 

Activity Dates: 01.10.2019 – 31.08.2020

Total Months of Volunteering: 11 months

 

Hosting Country: Portugal

Hosting Organisation: Poetas do Futuro, an afterschool Akademia for kids 5-9th grade.

Main Activities Developed:

• Plan and supervise different activities with the children after school. So far we have done different types of crafts with the kids and helped with a baking activity planned by the Akademia workers. There will be options to do sporting games, board games, cook and bake and do different types of crafts in the coming months.
• Help and support children in the activities they have chosen to participate in on their free time after school. I will be there to be a partner in a game if needed or join a sports game if invited. The kids here love basketball and football and love to invite the local workers and us volunteers to join them.
• Help to serve a lunch-snack to the kids. All of the kids in the Akademia get a small snack after their activities and free time and before evening study-groups. Us volunteers help to put out the snacks and keep count on who has had their snack. As an interesting way of getting kids to eat fruits, they have a system where if the kids bring back the core or a pit of the fruit they had eaten, they also get 2-3 cookies or biscuits as a treat.
• Introduce my country and culture to the kids. There hasn’t been an estonian volunteer in this organization before and my culture is very new and different to the local kids. So far I have put up a small picture presentation about me and my home and also talked a little about myself. The kids were especially intrigued when I told them about the cold winters and the amount of snow we get in Estonia.
• In the future, helping the kids with their homework will also be one of the activities that volunteers will be asked to participate in. At the moment this is difficult since my portuguese is very bad, but hopefully in the future it will be good enough to be able to help the kids in their studies.

 

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