Creative Arts Volunteers .....

Creative Arts Volunteers .....

Creatives Art volunteer Casey with students from Olives

Introduced this year in Mombasa is a project that supports the educational, creative and personal development of underprivileged children through introducing them to Creative Arts.  We started in April and our first intake of volunteers and it has been a great success!  

The volunteers have integrated themselves seamlessly within the schools, amongst their fellow volunteers and Kenyan teachers.  They have proved to play a vital teaching role by engaging children in their learning through creative pursuits.

The Creative Arts volunteers work alongside their volunteer counterpart teaching two Creative Arts lessons a week to Standards 1 to 8 (encompassing an age range of 5-15).  This enables the volunteer to teach a wide range of artistic skills to different age groups and abilities.  From making butterflies out of paper and lollipop sticks with Standard 1 and 2, to teaching still life drawing with Standards 7 and 8.  

As well as developing the children’s artistic imagination, the Creative Arts volunteers have also taken it upon themselves to incorporate aspects of the volunteers’ English classes into their lessons.  Through conversing with the volunteer teacher, they have managed to combine both the fun aspects of Creative Arts with the educational side of the English lessons.  For example; when teaching pronouns to Standard 3 the Creative Arts volunteer asked them to draw a picture of their family and label them appropriately, ‘He is my brother’, ‘She is my sister’ etc.

Volunteer Monika helping at community's Creative Art lesson

 Creative Arts lessons have now been extended to the Bombolulu Adult Community Group.  Volunteer Aya, who was very enthusiastic about introducing art to adults who had never had the opportunity to attend school, let alone learn about drawing and painting.  The trial lesson consisted of water-colour painting and still life drawings, concentrating on the use of shading.  This proved to be a huge success and has been continued twice weekly alongside the volunteers other community classes of English, Maths and Computer Skills.
 

Creative Arts Volunteer Aya with students from Bombolulu Adult Community Group

Despite Creative Arts not being on the official Kenyan Curriculum, the children at both Nyota Ing’arayo School and Olives Rehabilitation Centre have thoroughly enjoyed these lessons, which have been happening since GVI became partners with both of the schools.  However, the recent addition of the Creative Arts volunteers has added more structure to their lessons and enabled the children to develop their creativity which is an important part of learning and of course, great fun!  

By Michele Comber - Project Manager

Creative Arts Volunteers .....