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“What is missing on this wall,” Dominik Galliker, a volunteer from Germany, asked a group of primary school-aged students at the Jeb Jenin Center. “Pictures! Windows! Color!” the students shout ecstatically.
“Well, we can’t add windows, but we can add color,” he tells them.
For several days, the children, with the help of the teachers and volunteers, spent several days creating a mural spelling out ‘JUSOOR’ using a projected image and then coloring it in under the theme of happiness.
This summer, after a three-year COVID and economic crisis-induced hiatus, Jusoor’s Summer Volunteer Program was back with three weeks of fun-packed activities prepared by international volunteers in Lebanon.
Taking place across three different learning centers run by Jusoor in Jeb Jenine, Bourj Hammoud, and Jurahiya, our volunteers and two interns ran the summer volunteer program to offer students three weeks full of engaging, fun, and educational activities.
After some time together to plan and have orientation, the volunteers got to work. The activities focused on various art forms and learning opportunities, from arts and crafts activities where the children created sock puppets, sea creatures, and mosaics from simple and waste materials to filmmaking, where the children wrote, shot, and edited three short films. The activities also included theater and music, where the children both got to create simple musical instruments and play them, as well as explore what music can do and how it can make us feel.
Art was not the only item on the menu, for there was also food. Several cooking sessions were planned where the children got to learn about different foods and their nutritional value through making salads, milkshakes, and even a lazy cake.
The children also got a chance to learn basic computer skills such as using Word and PowerPoint, as well as complicated technological advancements such as robotics and coding. They also got to practice some mental mathematics and play some sports with the teachers and volunteers.
All in all, it was a successful summer where the children got to engage in all kinds of different activities and the volunteers got to spend a fruitful summer in Lebanon playing, exploring, and engaging with the community.
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank the volunteers who took time out of their busy schedules to fly all the way to Lebanon bringing along their talents, creativity, and energy to our centers to experience first-hand what our centers are doing and help give the children a summer that was both fun and educational.
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