October Update from Flor

Our educadores in Flor highlight the recent events of the past month at Starfish. October has been packed with activities for our students! In the past few weeks, there has been a short vacation from school, in which the Flor Starfish educadores hosted a flea market to generate funds for Starfish. Also in the past month, our students have participated in several workshops, including a Sexuality and Gender Equality workshop, whose aims are to bring awareness, knowledge, and confidence to our students!

Words from our educadores: 

We began vacation time with a flea market that for us, was very successful! Many people came and bought large amounts of clothing, and other items as well. There was such a high demand for items that we sold out, and people had to wait for a second batch of items to come in. This in and of itself was very rewarding, as this was the first time that we had organized this type of event and, prior to executing our plans, we were worried that perhaps people wouldn’t be interested. Our fears weren’t realized, as all went well and many more people attended than we had anticipated!


The rest of our vacation time was very relaxing and chévere (cool, fun), and we were able to spend time with the children in different groups. The variety of activities brought us and the students a lot of enjoyment. For a few days, we were able to leave behind the monotony of everyday work activies and the daily routine, such as homework and other work-related activites, and instead focus on fun and friendships. Furthermore, we were able to see how the group team-building activities and workshops strengthened our bonds, both in and out of the classroom. The group activities included contests and other games, and we witnessed the students working together. More importantly, these activities were, in reality, a way to teach the students cooperation in the group setting. In these activities, the students share ideas and knowledge, and by doing so, they realize that they learn and achieve much more together than they do separately. Witnessing the students' infectious, enthusiastic energy brings us joy as educators, and being a part of this environment enables us to realize that each moment with our students in unique and special in its own way.

Successful flea market shopping^

Our community enjoys the flea market during their vacation time.

Members of Starfish and the Flor community wait in line to check out the flea market!

Our students work together during the Gender Equality and Sexuality workshops.

En español:

Iniciamos Los vacacionales con un mercado de pulgas en el cual nos fue muy bien ya que muchas personas llegaron y llevaron prendas en gran cantidad al igual que los diferentes artículos, que incluso esperaron a la segunda ronda, para continuar con la compra, esto fue muy gratificante ya que era la primera vez que hacíamos este tipo de eventos y tal vez no habrían muchas personas interesadas, pero no, tuvo buena acogida que incluso llegaron más personas que las que se había planeado.


El resto de los días fueron muy chéveres ya que pudimos compartir con todos los chicos de los distintos grupos y los cuales se alegraron de verse nuevamente; en las diferentes actividades que realizamos nos permitieron divertirnos más, dejando por unos días la monotonía de los deberes y dar cavidad a la diversión y el compañerismo, pudimos ver como el trabajo grupal en los concursos y en los talleres se veía fortalecer, eso nos entusiasma mucho ya que ellos demuestran que pueden lograr muchas cosas tan solo con proponérselo y eso hacía que ellos puedan lograr ganar, además que podíamos intercambiar conocimientos y adquirir nuevos, pero de maneras didácticas, ser parte de ese entusiasmo hacia que el momento se tornara diferente, que cada uno sea especial y ameno.

My Starfish Story - An Intern Perspective

Karley is a rising high school senior and has been interning with Starfish for almost a year now.  At our dinner in Baltimore this past April, Karley shared her "Starfish Story" with us - and what an inspiring story it is! Hear her story in Karley's own words and get a glimpse into Starfish's U.S. operations below...

"Hi, I am Karley White and I will start off by telling you a little bit about myself. I am a high school junior involved in lots of activities in an out of the school environment including student government, frisbee, coaching soccer and of course The Starfish Foundation.  

My Starfish story began with being fortunate enough to meet Beth through Hugh O’Brian Maryland Youth Leadership seminar last May, and then again in Chicago at the Hugh O’Brian World Leadership Congress. Both of these seminars were a very bright light in my world, changing a lot of my perspectives as a young adult. When I came home last July all I wanted to do was go out and  change the world; I felt like I needed to give back - do something, make change. Then as I was procrastinating summer assignments on Facebook, I came upon Beth's post in the HOBY Facebook page that the foundation was looking for interns. Immediately I emailed her asking how I could get involved. Her reply asked for a resume and cover letter, both of which I did not have and was googling how to make one look nice. Soon we talked over the phone for an interview. I was so nervous. I told all my family they couldn’t come upstairs or make noise and I was just hoping to perfect it. Well, I guess I introduced myself nicely because not even 10 minutes later Beth so joyfully welcomed me to the team and reviewed my job as a marketing intern. I was absolutely thrilled, I was so happy to be apart of something great and knowing I would be devoting my time to help change the lives of students just like me earning an education. 

The past 8 or so months working with the foundation has been nothing short of inspiring and beautiful. Not only have I learned the true meaning of teamwork and synergy but I have also had so much opportunity to use my own creativity without a rubric guideline to follow. I work on a lot of short term projects, for example making a powerpoint, infographics, creating the Cafepress merchandise website, posting on the social media pages, etc. But it is not just me that works on it, it’s the flow of the collaboration that finalizes it all. We send it back and forth with edits or recommendations and always have deadlines to get it done. Also, the encouragement from everyone is certainly uplifting; there is never an email that goes by that is not concluded with thank yous and gratitude. To me there is no intimidating boss to intern type relationship, it is friend to friend working together for the common goal of making an impact. 

In conclusion, I feel as if I have gained more than I have given to the Starfish community and I have everyone on the team to thank for that. This experience continuously has been the uppermost value to me, it has been remarkable since the beginning. I consider myself lucky to say I am a part of this foundation and to have met and worked with the amazing people along the way. Thank you!"

Vacation Fun @ Starfish

The first two weeks of October are always an exciting time for our Scholars – school vacation! Last year the government standardized the school year schedule so that all schools have vacation at the same time.  This was especially exciting for us at Starfish because it meant that we could plan some special activities for all of our Scholars and tutoring students.

This year we had a fun mix of activities including: Crafts with recycled materials, Talks on Self-Esteem and Values, Debating, Music, Games, Community Service, Sports and more!  All of our Educadores were able to share their special talents and knowledge with all Scholars and tutoring participants.  We all got to learn a lot - exercising both our minds and our bodies during school break!

To end the week our students from Guasmo traveled to Flor to inaugurate the new space and end vacation with a fun-filled day of ice-breakers, games, soccer and more.  We even decorated the place a bit – each person leaving their mark with their handprints on the wall.

The theme of the day was “5K”.  Why you might ask?  To support our friends over at VISEDAL in Nicaragua.  Their Baltimore based non-profit sponsored a virtual 5K for their scholars.  This meant that you could run 5 kilometers – or do 5 of any activity – from anywhere in the world!  Our students participated by playing 5 games of soccer, building 5 towers, jumping with 5 friends, cooking (& eating!) 50 pounds of rice and much more!  Check out the VISEDAL page to hear more about this awesome event! Starfish even won a special prize as the largest group to participate in the 5K.  ¡Felicidades chicos!

Team-Building & Unity at Starfish Vacation Camp

This year, at the request of students and parents alike, Starfish held its first ever "Vacacionales", like sending kids to day camp in the U.S.

Nery, Sofia, Solange and Briggitte enjoy a day in the park in Guasmo.

Building off of the week of activities during the shorter October break, we spent every day for 2 weeks doing new team-building activities, integrating our morning and afternoon groups, cleaning up and decorating our space, increasing our creativity and having lots of fun with various games and sports.  We also had the chance to learn a few new things - like baking cake and cookies, how to make bracelets, how to take care of ourselves, and much more.  Overall, it was two weeks full of fun we wish could go on forever!

 

 

In the weeks that followed day camp, we finished up visiting all of the homes of Scholars, new & old, and reviewed all of of the applications for the next school year.  Stay tuned in the coming weeks to meet our new Starfish Scholars for the 2014-2015 school year which begins in 2 short weeks!

Ready for the Rain - Flor Renovation Updates

Two weeks ago we were able to make some great progress on the space lent to us in Flor de Bastión.  You might remember in July when we had a similar "minga" or work day to begin work on the space.  Since then we've using the space you see below, but we noticed a few necessary additions made more urgent when rainy season kicked into full gear these past few weeks.  

The "Maestro" hard at work!

Mixing the first batch of cement!

Luckily, we have a great group of dedicated scholars and parents who spent their Sunday doing their part to make sure we have a great place to continue our programs throughout the next 5 months of rainy season!

Who says this is man's work?  Not Betsy & Karina!!

David, one of our youngest and most enthusiastic participants!

On Sunday we had 3 main goals -
1) Finish the back wall of our classroom

Starfish dad, Aníbal, with Starfish Employee, Marcos.

2) Cement a trench/drain so that water that seeks in the through the sugar cane walls will filter out instead of into our classroom

Step 1 of the drain! 

Finished drain!

3) Clean up the area around outside of the classroom.

Students and parents alike helped clean up in the neighborhood surrounding Starfish.
Thanks to Starfish mom Juana for the great motivation!

We are proud to say that on Sunday we completed all 3 of these important tasks and that our space is now ready for the rain!

Learning to Lead at our October Meeting

This month at our October monthly meeting we focused on leadership.  We learned about teamwork, communication, setting goals and working towards those goals in a group setting by completing various activities and reflecting on our experiences.  It was a blast!  See all of these fun activities and more, below!

Setting up for our first icebreaker in Guasmo!

"Dinámica" or IceBreaker where we we had to work together creatively to get everyone's feet
 on a sheet of paper when the music stopped...each time with less sheets of paper!

It was easy when there were a lot of papers on the ground still,
here our students try to figure out what to do now with less paper.

Group work solving some riddles.  Our students had quite the creative responses!

Lili presenting to the parents what we did during our meeting.

After the becado (scholarship student) meeting, we also had a parent meeting and the parents did some icebreakers as well.  It was great to see the parents uniting and forming new friendships as well.  This year has been a great year of growth for Starfish and we're excited for the possibilities when students and parents alike unite for the success of their families and Starfish!  While the parents met, our students prepared a delicious, healthy snack and then served it to their parents for an great end to a fantastic day.

Starfish moms Maria and Adelaida participating in our parent activity.

Preparing snack with new Starfish Employee, Karina (pink shirt).

Geovanny helping out with snack in Guasmo.

Flor de Bastión students united after preparing a wonderful snack for the Starfish group!

The perfect end to a perfect day - lots of smiles!