Lessons on volunteering at the primary school
Habitat for Humanity Beiuş celebrated International Volunteer Day using the project „Teach your Parents!”
December 5th is the ‘International Day of Volunteers’ when volunteering is celebrated worldwide through promoting volunteering and recognizing what volunteers have done. As such, Habitat for Humanity Beius initiated the project “Teach your parents!” in collaboration with the General School “Nicolae Popoviciu” in Beius.
The main goal of the project is to influence adults through their own children and to persuade parents and grandparents to get involved in solving community problems through volunteer participation. To do this, many Habitat representatives participated in lessons at the school and taught the primary school children (7-10 years) about volunteering, about the good deeds they can do as children, about the problem of poverty housing, about how to improve living conditions and how people in the future may no longer live in poverty or be hungry, if we take care of each other. But for this to happen, their parents and the children, especially when they grow up, must take care of the environment, everything around them, to support the poorest and the needy to help them have decent lives.
“There are many prejudices these days such as Romanians no longer help each other, they are not united or that children do not understand ‘grown-up’ things. But all these are just prejudices because in reality there are lots Romanians who jump at the chance to help others, they are very united when people ask for help as problems occur and these little ones understand a great amount. Proof can be seen today as over 300 children in the 1st through to 4th grades talked about volunteering and good deeds, as if volunteering was one of their subjects that do for 5 hours a week”, said Jeremy North, a Habitat volunteer at this event.
The children spoke about volunteer activities that they’re already done, how much they help others who need their support and at the end they each drew a picture to represent the various activities in which they have participated or in which they would like to participate. This resulted in great pictures of a better, more beautiful world, full of joy, in which they and their parents help those in need.
“Although we are very small, we participated in voluntary activities in class. I planted flowers in the school’s park, we collected paper from alongside the river and last year we prepared boxes with Christmas presents for poor children from things that we no longer needed.” said Ioana, a student in 2nd grade.
At the end of the „Hour of Volunteering”, the children gathered together all their drawings and they will now be displayed for a week in the hallway of the Cityhall and then they’ll be posted to their parents as a Christmas gift on behalf of their children. On sending them, Habitat will include a small note of encouragement to get involved in volunteering, as well as an explanation referring to the role of these pictures , sharing how the children wish to learn and to pass on to their parents about making the world a better place for their future.
