BE THE RESOURCE FOR CHANGE

Changing someone’s life is the greatest achievement that one should be proud of. But to bring that change depends on how you understand change. Most people believe that to change someone’s life requires one to have resources like money and material. This is quite true but it is not a limitation for anyone having the passion for change and this is what ICS placement has made me realize; if you do not have resources for changing someone’s life then be the resource.

It’s a greatest experience beyond my expectations being at this ICS placement. Personally, I am enjoying the placement in all dimensions especially the project we working on of “go back to school” which aims at sending back to school primary school drop outs. We are just four weeks into the placement but I feel like my contribution has and is still bringing impact to the communities we are working in.

Some of the beneficiaries of this project

To identify the children who drop out of school we use door to door approach. Before starting this exercise I had some fears mostly on the communities’ reaction towards this activity. But when we started visiting different homes to identify children who dropped out of school, it has not been so challenging as I anticipated. This exercise is improving my skills on door to door type of approach activity in the way that whenever we visit a home, we explain why we are implementing this project and its impact towards the individual, family, community and society and convince the families to help their children to get back to school. There are lots of families in the villages who do not understand the importance of school so they give less or no attention and responsibility for their children to get educated. They prefer taking the children to work in the fields than sending them to school because they do not see the immediate effect of school. So to convince these parents requires special skills of approach.

door to door identification process being carried out

Another exciting activity that I am enjoying is doing lessons in schools where the beneficiaries of this project have been enrolled on human rights and life skills. This is one way of advocating human rights to learners. There are a lot of children who do not know their rights and they are violated and subjected to different kinds of abuse. For them to realize their rights they need someone to sensitize them. So as a resource for change, this is another good opportunity to change someone’s life. The lessons we do usually helps us to be resourceful in order to feed information which is valid and useful. The lessons also are also helping me improve my public speaking skills mostly in terms of planning and how to deliver the intended message. It looks simple to stand in front of children and teach them but whatever you feed them has an impact in their lives.

Taking a lesson to an open space to make it practical and fun

As the placement is progressing am hoping to experience a lot. It is a chance not worth to lose as it is the best to bring change to the society. As a citizen who has no resources to change someone’s life but having the passion, I take myself as the greatest resource that can bring change to the society.

Blog by

Collins Mtumodzi-ICS volunteer

In Siya-Siya Salima