Outreach Programs
ST. FRANCIS SCHOOL
CENTENNIAL OLIVET OUTREACH PROGRAM
As eighth graders at St. Francis, we have a special opportunity to help out our community through a tutoring program. Students, teachers and parents from St. Francis contribute to do community service. This lets us help out other children who do not have the same privileges that we have been blessed with. Therefore, this tutoring project is very important to us as individuals and as a community because we are able to reach out and “pay forward” our gifts.
Each week on Mondays, a sign up sheet makes its way through a group of kids eager to help. When Tuesday rolls around the 6th, 7th and 8th graders go to an inner –city church, Centennial Olivet Baptist Church. While we are there, we tutor under privileged children from Louisville. We teach them basic reading, writing and math skills or if they have homework we make sure they can get that done. We are given worksheets and books to make sure they know these skills.
The children get to the church by a bus which goes around downtown and picks up any child that wants to attend. They will not turn anybody down unless there is some sort of violence problem or uncontrollable problem. When they arrive at the church, they are given dinner provided by the church and then are paired up with one of the tutors. The children’s age range from 3-15, but the majority of them are under 10.
Another thing students do who don’t attend tutoring at Centennial Olivet Baptist church, is to tutor at another place. They, every Monday after school, drive down to a church in downtown Louisville. It is a relatively small church/school with tall gothic spires and high ceilings. A few students help the 7th grade children during their study hall period.
Some of these children, despite difficult and abusive home-lives are quite promising academically. The only thing that holds them back is a lack of opportunities due to poverty. It pains us to see intelligent young people being held back in life just because they do not have enough money. Is poverty a problem where you live? If so, what are some things the government can do to help families in impoverished areas?
CRESTON COLLEGE OUTREACH PROGRAM
We believe that in order to breakdown cultural differences and help less privileged schools, a carefully monitored outreach program needs to be implemented. If every “privileged” school could adopt at least one underprivileged school, education in South Africa would take a turn for the better. There is a great deal that we can offer in terms of both physical and educational assistance:
Physical: This involves practical action like cleaning, repairing, and painting school buildings and furniture (see pictures on the team web-site). There is nothing more depressing than having to spend six hours a day in a dreary, lifeless classroom. If we could assist in creating an environment which stimulates creativity and learning, that would improve the education that the pupils receive.
Educational: This would involve the actual teaching for a day of the rural students by the so-called privileged students. This would enable the rural students to meet and interact with students who are enthusiastic about education, and hopefully impart some of this enthusiasm. Sometimes concepts are more easily grasped in a school setting when they are taught by peers of the same age, and not by an “older” teacher.
Our main objective is to develop our outreach programmes into historically disadvantaged and under-represented areas of the community as well as to continue education programmes with local schools and groups. It is our main aim to encourage and lead other schools in our area to reach out in communities and help promote education as a vital, participatory, necessary, and fun part of children’s lives. Also the importance of our unique environment and the participation of all its citizens is completely interwoven with our outreach programme.
We have outreach programme every term. We pair up with a rural school, Gamalakhe High, and together tackle the following topics:
- wetland preservation
- water conservation
- river and ocean pollution
- pollution effects on marine life
- the effects of cholera and balhaza
With the students at Gamalakhe High, we did the following activities:
- made games
- made posters
- prepared oral reports
- took outreach field trips to the beach
- learned about different habitats and marine life
The purpose of this programme is to share our knowledge with a rural school that does not have the resources that we do at Creston College.
