LOCAL PROJECT WEEK-Animals Faith Volunteering

Our group, consisting of Asbjoern Hansen, Emma Agnelli, Martijn Hatfield and LeandraIlkka, chose to help out at the local organisation Animals Faith. The organisation provides
dog training, grooming, veterinary assistance, lodging and a shelter. The organisation runs
mostly through the help of volunteers, so we knew that our help would be valuable, and
this influenced us in choosing this project. We had not heard of many existing Project
Weeks concerning animals, and we believe that helping animals is of great importance in
any community so this was also a learning experience for us to see how animals are
treated in Maastricht.

These were our goals:

1. Design and pursue a student-led project.
2. Provide a service to an organization/community.
3. Organize activities outside the campus.
6. Improve your organization, communication and collaboration skills.
7. Get to know more about yourself and your group.
10. Learn new (practical) skills

We believe that we did achieve all of these goals throughout the week.

This was a general program of one of our Project Week days:

- Arrive at Animals Faith 9:00
- Clean outside pens and refill water 9:00-9:30
- Clean first two rows of pens inside (refill water, wash floor, dry floor, clean out poop) 9:30-10:30
- Go for a walk with dogs 10:30-11:30
- Clean last two rows of pens inside (refill water, wash floor, dry floor, clean out poop) 11:30-12:30
- Wash bowls, Clean gutter, Take out poop bins 12:30- 13:00
- Departure from Animals Faith 13:00

Our project week was important because the practical work we did has an effect on the
whole life of an animal staying at that shelter. For example, if we did not clean their bowls
sufficiently they could become sick and if we did not dry their pens well enough this could
hurt their paws and make them very uncomfortable. Our Project Week links to the UWC
values because we had to show intercultural understanding, since the care of the animals
differed to that of some of our cultures and we had to adjust to that. We also embodied
personal responsibility and integrity as well as mutual responsibility and respect, since we
were responsible for the well being of the animals and for completing our tasks well and
efficiently. We also embodied compassion and service, since a big part of our project week
was interacting with animals and the people who worked at the organisation, and
compassion is a large part of animal care.

Here are some photos of our time at the shelter!

Challenges or Problem Identification

“Young people are able to do many things that were never done before in  history”.  Over the past few months we have learnt a lot of new skills. For the most of us the Youth Social Entrepreneurship programme was something completely new, so we had to start from scratch. Before we actually started to work on the projects, we identified our weaknesses and strengths. This was done mainly to identify our strengths to help us improvise while we are working on our projects.

We also had a lot of fun games which helped to built trust and co-operation among the peers. The interactive sessions and the discussions were mainly for brainstorming purposes. Instead of approaching the problems directly, we looked at the situations that surrounded us. At first we identified a problem that we might have observed or experienced in the community and then we deconstructed the problem. We looked at the causes and the consequences of the problems and tried to get to the grassroot level. Therefore, our first step was to look at the problems rather than actually looking for the solutions. This was done to analyze the problems in a critical manner.

 

 

Having a look at the impacts of the problem on the community was also an essential part of the course in order to get a clear picture of what the actual problem was. So, basically we dissolved the problems and chose the problems that were realistic and doable. During this term we also had guest speakers: Michal Steyn from ‘Serve the City’ and Vincent Frenken from ‘Trajekt’ who are working with the local community through a volunteering NGO and Maastricht’s Social Services. Their talks were not only inspiring but also helped us get equipped with knowledge about challenges in the city of Maastricht or the region, that made us look at social entrepreneurship from a completely different dimension.

 

YSE is definitely one of the programmes that can solve many of the problems present in the community and also helps young students to develop into independent and creative people.

Dechen Zangmo (Bhutan)

A dialogue with Abraham Keita - Children´s Peace Prize laureate 2015

Last Friday, 11^th December, my friend Praise and I attended an event in Leiden, the Netherlands.   The event was organized by Defense for Children and we got to meet Abraham Keita who won the Children’s Peace Prize in November 2015.  Abraham Keita is an amazing youngster from Liberia who has done countless things to help his and others’ communities.  He is also an inspiring person who believes that children have the right to do what they believe is best for them.  When he was 9 years old he heard a story of a random girl who was raped, tortured, and killed.  The story made him realize that this time it happened to a girl whom he did not know at all but it could soon happen to his friends, cousins, and sisters if this issue was not stopped.  This whole incident inspired him to start a campaign against this problem and there were 500 children who joined him.  As a child he was always very passionate and he believes that everyone (especially children) can make a difference in the world.

[caption id="attachment_203" align="alignnone" width="300"] Defense for Children[/caption]

 

I had some really inspiring moments talking to some young university students who were social entrepreneurs with extreme passion to help others and to work towards their dreams.  Most of them are quite young but they all work really hard hoping to change and make the world a better place. They are people who see problems in their society as something that needs to be solved and they take initiative to show the world what they want to happen.  This really inspires me to live my life fully and to serve others with what I have. It also shows me that if these people can make a difference in life, so can I.

I realized that somehow some of us don’t think our YSE class is useful but I come to really appreciate what it has taught me and how important it is to everyone and the society we live in.  I am really grateful to have this opportunity to remind myself of what I have taken for granted.

Ahai Vang (Laos)

Human Rights

Three of our sessions have been dedicated to understanding better the concept of Human Rights.

Last 2nd December, three members of the UWCM Amnesty International group joined us to present the 16 Days of Activism for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls.

The three DP1 students (Mathilde Barland, Nusret Yildirim and Emi Lee Ai Yen) talked about AI's efforts wordwide and then proposed and interactive activity for the MYP5 students.

 

 

Students picked different roles of a variety of individuals in many different countries and situations and they had to answer to several statements in relation to how much their rights were being fulfilled or not. A very interesting exercise which made us think outside the box and reflect once again about how privileged we are for the comforts we have...

Serious Request 2015 - Supporting the Red Cross for the Right to Education of children and youth in conflict areas

UWC Maastricht decided to embark in the Serious Request of the Red Cross this year to raise awareness about the challenges to the Right of Education of thousands of children and youth around the world who are also experiencing war or conflict in their countries.

This was an excellent opportunity as well for MYP5 students to design their own actions to fundraise for the Red Cross and other MYP students and staff also came up with their own ideas to raise awareness while having fun: UWC Maastricht with Serious Request 2015

 



Their learning outcomes have been that working as a team is not always easy because self-management requires planning and effort, that lower number of members in the team help to manage it better, that internal communication is something important which needs to be taken seriously to inform all aspects of the process and finally, that the will and commitment to a project is more than 50% of the success of that project.