Yesterday 4 Japanese and One Filipino teacher visited Don Koi and the students and facilitators involved in DFC SHAREd their experience and brainstorms with the visitors . Facilitator Khamphan presented most of it as this was the first experience for them to SHARE. Slowly the students will be able to SHARE it with others all by themselves :)
Sompanya School sent us their second DFC story! This class tackled cleanliness and hygiene in the school. Very inspiring!
Donkoi have finished the DFC process. Their problem of keeping the toilets clean resulted in the DO stage - children brought their poem and posters of how to keep the toilet clean. They chanted the poem excitedly and invited the principal and staff to watch. Their solution was something that the adults had not thought about doing before!
The DFC team here is 7 people and they worked very hard, so Madame Xuyen made them special hats to show her appreciation! They are planning to make certificates for all the students and volunteers involved to wrap up the process and to make the students feel proud of their work.
The team and students had a reflection session where they laid out all the steps of their process – FEEL, WHY, HOW, IMAGINE, DO – on top of the ping pong table and everyone could see the steps and their thinking in the process.
They presented their resolution to the school administration also and are waiting to see they will help them also do some repairs on the toilet as it is old and the walls are cracked. There is a plan to repair the floor so it will not get wet all the time.
The children are keen to do another DFC project! Stay tuned for the SHARE video
Sompanya School students have completed their DO and here is their DFC 2012 video showing us that THEY CAN! Well done mentors, teachers and students!!
DO, DO, DO!! Both groups have completed the DO stage of their project.
Project 1 - On April 10th, the students performed a drama (written by themselves) relating to bullying and friendship at school, and they organised games for friendship after the performance. In the week leading up to the DO activities, they worked really hard as a group to prepare posters to invite all students to the show and games, as well as personally inviting the teachers and heads. They practised consistently and took responsibility for organising themselves. The show was well received and their message was clear to the whole school, raising awareness of this important issue of respecting and being kind to others.
Project 2 - This group’s planning committee had dropped down to 6 girls in the secondary school who were committed to continuing the plan and seeing the project through to the end. They continued to make bags for Saoban and made posters to invite the whole school to hear their presentation about hygiene and appropriate bathroom behaviour. They presented their message to the school on Wednesday morning and made posters to put in the bathrooms to remind students to keep the bathrooms clean.
We are proud of the students for taking responsibility and seeing the projects through. They have made a difference in the school, shared some important messages, collaborated, learned more about each other by working together, improved their critical and creative thinking skills, and reflected on the process along the way. It has not been without difficulty for the students or the teachers, but they showed that THEY CAN!
DFC is underway at Vientiane College with the ACCESS program (US Embassy funded program for disadvantaged youth).
The ACCESS Group A students held round table discussions in March about problems that were bothering them, and each group of about 4-5 students made a list based on this brainstorm session. The students then narrowed their ideas to choose one to represent each group. The class then held an informal presentation of each idea, describing the problem and why they felt it was a problem to be addressed. The students held a vote, and chose one issue to use for DFC.
The issue the students chose was education in rural areas. They will focus specifically on the lack of materials available in schools in rural areas, and this appears appropriately tied to the background of many of the students.
They continued the IMAGINE stage in April and decided on a fundraising event to actually raise money for buying books and school supplies to send to a school of their choice. They will deliver the materials themselves which will help them connect with the students they are trying to help.
This week the students are combining with ACCESS B and C groups to fill them in on their plan and involve all groups in the planning for DO stage. At this point, they will hold a fundraising event at the school on a Saturday afternoon, either at the end of May or June, and it will be their responsibility to “run the show”. Hans from Patoo industries will be joining the planning stage this week to shoot some footage of this great project.
We just received an update from Madame Xuyen of Donkoi Children’s Development Center. They have 15 to 20 children of grades 4 and 5 involved in DFC this year, and the teacher and students are very excited! We’re excited too!
Sompanya moves on to DO!
Both groups followed the planning steps for the DO stage, asking themselves about the people they could involve, when to DO their plan, resources or money required, and the main aims of their implementation. Is was getting harder to plan in the larger groups and some students expressed they did not want to be part of the planning, so we let them decide whether or not they participated at this stage. However, they will participate in the DO stage for both groups.
Project 1 - They identified that they needed 80,000 kip to implement their plan, so they are making paper bags to sell to Saoban to raise money themselves. They are still working on the song and the poem about cleanliness, so they may not DO it before Lao New Year.
Project 2 - Their final plan for football and a drama show in order to promote friendship, inclusion and solidarity will be carried out on the 10th of April. They don’t need to raise money, but they are busy practising and organising this week.
Aluna came to Sompanya on the 30.03.12 to hear how Design for Change is going and spread spread some I CAN excitement!
More exciting progress at Sompanya School!
Most days started off as one group - practising the ‘I can’ song together and starting each session with a student-led warmer game. This was to keep morale up, as the process is quite long and the students are not used to project-based learning and the level of thinking and energy required to sustain the project long term. Students also put up their progress chart and updated the feel stage with photos and captions.
Then the students continued in the IMAGINE stage in their respective groups.
Project 1 - Students analysed the results from their observations of all the bathrooms on level 2 and 3, and started to imagine solutions targeting the root causes and real situation - key times of the day, groups of students, hygiene awareness and appropriate behaviour in a toilet.
Project 2 - Students started to imagine solutions for the inclusion problem. At first, they had trouble doing it in smaller groups, so we switched to brainstorming together. We needed to keep reminding students of what the problem and root causes were, and asking ‘how is that solving the problem?’ and ‘what do you want to achieve by doing that?’. They had a lot of ideas and voted on the ones they thought best fit the problem and they could implement in a week - a singing and drama activity, planting trees for friendship, and organising a football game for solidarity.
