14 glucose buscuits later...

Our volunteering at CBR has been demanding and frustrating, but equally rewarding as the week progressed. Before we instituted positive reinforcement, these teachers simply babysat and gave attention for misbehaving. The children would get hit or simply dragged to where the adults wanted them to go... they had no opportunity to gain control of their own actions.
We have seen one student progress; he was always physically held down by the adults due to his extreme hyperactivity. We watched him get hit by the teachers, and also the other kids. These kids constantly hit each other because that is what is modeled for them! A few days ago we found that he would run after a balloon, so we started to give him the balloon when he was sitting with the group or even remotely participating. Needless to say he is now very dependent on the balloon for his behavior, but at least he has some control over his own actions! We are trying to explain to the teachers that he should be weened off slowly from receiving immediate rewards, and that it will take time; however, due to both the language barrier and the absolute unfamiliarity of positive reinforcement for children, it is difficult to really get through to the adults.
There was one girl (L) who always asked for a balloon, but always when she was misbehaving. She did not understand that the balloon was a reward for when the other child acted correctly. We went to the nearby VSN home to get some translations for "You only receive a reward if you act well." We have repeated that, making it our Nepali mantra at the daycare center, and the didis/teachers have started to catch on!
Yesterday morning, L requested a balloon as soon as we arrived. In our best Nepali, we asked, "What do you like?" and she pointed to a yellow star drawn on a piece of paper. We asked her to sit down (in Nepali), and when she did, we immediately gave her a piece of paper with a yellow star. Soon, all of the kids at the daycare were requesting yellow stars, and we only gave them to people who followed our directions. It caught on really well; we finally discovered a sustainable reward system for CBR! The teachers even began to catch on after a few hours and we caught some didis actually rewarding positive behavior with a yellow star! All we did was carry around yellow markers and draw more stars on the pieces of paper, so simple, yet it meant so much to these kids. They finally were receiving attention for being good rather than bad.
After CBR, we went to the VSN children’s home nearby and had a music night with them. We all had so much fun, teaching them American songs and learning Nepali songs. There are 31 kids in that one home, but they are all so incredible. The managers there are some of the coolest people we’ve met, college graduates from Nepal spending twenty-four hours a day as fathers to 31 children. We are having a great time, trying to make a difference at CBR, and learning a lot from the Nepalis here!

Once upon a time in Nepal....

Photobucket Album

Five-Star Charpi

So... we got our placement! We are working in Community Based Rehabilitation Daycare Center (CBR), which is located in a village south of Kathmandu. The center cares for children with disabilities ranging from ADHD to cerebral palsy – if a child has any type of disability, physical or mental, there is no place for them in normal Nepali schools. For example, in one of the new homes where VSN is placing volunteers, there were kids with solely physical disabilities who did not go to school with the rest of the children but were instead home-schooled – they did not have any sort of intellectual disability that hindered their inability to learn. The fact that they have any disability at all keeps them from having any access to any school.

Right next to CBR is a VSN-owned children’s home with 31 children. Because CBR is not open in the morning and the evenings (because it is just a day facility for children), we will have the opportunity to work there as well. We are so excited to finally begin our volunteer work!

Our new home placement is just amazing! We left Thamel around 2:30 pm and arrived in the village at 3:15 just when it was beginning to downpour. We “schlepped” our bags all the way down muddy pathways and arrived at our house. It is just beautiful! It is a 2-story house, and our room is on the second floor. Our room is right next door to the parents’ room. The parents are both very young and are probably only 4-5 years older than us. They both speak pretty good English, which has made communication so easy. We now have a little 18-month old sister who is just precious and so gorgeous! She spent a greater part of the afternoon in our room looking at all of our stuff and dancing while Jessi played music on her guitar. The best part of the house is the charpi (or bathroom)... it has flowered tiles, a shower, and the best looking hole-in-the-ground that we both have seen in a while.

Eating

In our house is an 18 month old girl, her mom and dad, and the dad’s parents. We call the baby’s mom “didi,” older sister, and the baby’s dad is “dhai.” The dhai’s dad is ba and the dhai’s mom is amaa.

Didi cooks our food, and comes and gets us when it is ready. We sit on straw pads on the floor in the kitchen and didi stands in the kitchen and watches us while we eat, ready to refill any portion that we finish.

Today we saw the Godavari resort on an early morning walk. It was beautiful, a really nice resort but off the beaten path! It had a nice ballroom, big pool, and tons of high end lodging. It seemed deserted, since it is the off-season, and out of place in this humble village.

Later in the morning we went to CBR, our placement! There are 19 kids with various disabilities. We got a long orientation from the program director. We learned that there is nowhere to study special education in Nepal, he said people go to Europe. None of the “teachers” or “didis” (caretakers) have any actual training on teaching or working with children with disabilities, however they were all very nice women with good intentions. The teacher who teaches 3 boys with Down syndrome has a daughter with multiple disabilities who stays home.

There were a few girls who were totally typical intellectually, but had hemiplegia or other muscle impairments. They were not allowed to attend normal school regardless of the fact that they were as smart as any other Nepali child! There was a large variation in age, from five years old to twenty-one, all in the same class. Even though there were multiple teachers at the center, the group was mostly all together in one chaotic bunch.

The teachers have very low expectations of the children. They do everything for the kids, for example children with physical disabilities are carried from one room to the other when they are capable of walking with assistance, as we saw later in the day. The children are not given any positive reinforcement... most of the attention they receive occurs when they are not doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

Basically, we helped out and observed today. We tried not to be invasive on our first day, because we are foreign students coming into this rural Nepali NGO-run center where the caretakers/teachers speak mostly Nepali. We hope to implement some more legitimate lesson plans, individual goals, and behavior plans to make the students’ time there more meaningful.

After school, we rode the jeep with the students to take them home. We had heard from the director of CBR that many days are lost due to transportation issues. He explained that they have a donated jeep, but it often occurs that they cannot access petrol. When we first heard that we were shocked that such a seemingly minor setback would prevent students from attending an entire day of school, but after the ride in the jeep we experienced the reality of the issue. These children live in extremely rural, remote areas that can only be accessed by steep, winding, muddy paths that can barely be called roads. It was a beautiful drive, with both roller coaster and safari-like qualities.

We were also surprised that the children with physical disabilities did not go home with their wheelchairs, but after seeing their home settings, we now realize that they are far from handicap accessible. The children’s mothers picked them up on the jeep and took them into the house via piggy-back-rides.

We took a nice walk in the evening, and were almost eaten by a truck that was painted with the sign “Road King” on the front (rightfully so). Tomorrow we go to Kathmandu for the monthly mandatory volunteer meeting for all volunteers.

Namaste!