Post Service

After working with Hayder for five weeks I have realized that learning and experiences were recurring themes throughout our time together. I think that he learned more things in our short time together than he did prior to us meeting him. I will admit that I thoroughly enjoyed seeing him grow as an immigrant and adapt to a new country firsthand. I believe the experiences we shared together will have a positive impact on his life, and more importantly, gives him memories to remember. Experiences are what Hayder needs most of all because that is the way he can connect with others and form more of a social life. This service project was very meaningful to me because I experienced working with an immigrant and I never had done that before. Anytime you do something new, whether it is a good experience or a bad experience it will always be a learning experience which is invariably significant. This project has definitely motivated me to try new things and promote growth through learning.

Learning & Growing

This week Hayder was taught how to cook and also helped him learn the rules of the road to prepare for his upcoming driver's license test. We were explaining various driving situations and telling him how to react when a situation presents itself. He was having trouble with certain signs on the road. For example, he had no idea what the "no passing zone" sign indicated. This is where symbolism is extremely important when completing a task that has symbols(i.e., driving). We had to draw pictures for him to imagine a real situation involving traffic. When we tried showing him how to bake a pizza in the oven there was quite confusion. He did not understand that the pizza needed to be defrosted before we out it in the oven. We advised him to read the back of the box which has directions on it. Overall though, I think Hayder is adapting well to life in the States. He is showing signs of ethnocentrism by comparing his own culture to American ways of life. I think for future interactions with Hayder we will have to try and get him more involved in his community so he can meet as many people as possible. Like I said though, he is doing very well and even was recently hired doing electrical work!

Making Progress

This week we again practiced Hayder's English. However, we also incorporated things that he learned in school to real life. He got a notice in the mail that his building was being exterminated and he wanted us to tell him what that meant. We went over some of his homework like being able to tell what time it is on a clock. This was a great assignment because it got Hayder to use hand gestures more often than he is used to. He was able to use his fingers to communicate what time it was. He also learned in school some nonverbal communication skills. For example, nodding your head up and down signifies yes whereas shaking your head from side to side signifies no. I noticed that from the time we met last week until this time around his vocabulary had really improved. He was using multiple syllable words, although with his accent it was still not as clear as it should have been but at least it is some progress. We were also helping him work on his hand writing since he will be applying for jobs soon and will need to know how do that. We explained to him the importance of writing legibly because, chances are, if an employer cannot read his application easily, he probably will not get hired. I think for our future interactions with Hayder we will try and have him communicate with us through writing so that way we can work on writing and language collectively. This has been another great and exciting week with Hayder!

Meeting Hayder

Well, we finally met our refugee. Hayder is 27 years old, from Baghdad, Iraq. He came to the United States this past December.He seemed very greatly that we came to visit him. He even gave us candy and poured us some juice. Obviously he had quite a noticeable accent. This made it difficult to communicate thoroughly because we could not understand every word that he was relaying to us. We were having trouble translating what he was saying and there were definitely moments where there was obvious frustration. We could not communicate nonverbally which made the situation even more difficult. We tried using hand gestures but Hayder did not catch on to them as well as we would have liked. As I had anticipated, there was an enormous language barrier. We had to closely listen to him speak and the little English that he spoke was very broken. For instance, he would say "not can" instead of cannot. I think that what we learned, or rather did not learn, about Hayder and his language was that in future interactions we need to help him improve on his vocabulary of the English language. We can accomplish this feat by reading to him from a dictionary or a book. I think it is also important that we help him to sound out words so that he can hear them be spoken and will be familiar with them when he hears them in his everyday interactions. I think we will start will general information like "How are you?" or "How was your day?" We will gradually introduce him to more difficult situations. While the future of working with Hayder looks difficult, I am looking forward to the challenge.

Pre- Service

Hi all,

I am very happy to announce that this week my group and I will be meeting our Refugee. His Name is Hayder and he is from Iraq. I am excited to meet him but also a little nervous. My hopes for this service-learning project is to make my refugee more comfortable in his transition from his homeland to the United States. If he has any question that he needs answered, I can help him with that. If there is a language barrier, I will do my best to help him adapt to the English language. However, I also think it is important that he communicates with us about his own culture so that we can relate to it. My assumptions about the service-learning site is that it probably is not a fancy residence to most Americans. However, I feel that to immigrants it may be much more than what they are used to in their previous country. It is probably your average apartment complex. I assume that World Relief Moline serves refugees who come from low SES countries. For example, African countries and countries who are in danger, like middle eastern countries. Passions I can make about this project and the population it serves is that I love to help people. I think that when you are interested in something you are more likely to have a positive impact on people because you actually want to be there. I think the population will benefit from this project because they will be getting the opportunity to meet and connect with different people. Hopefully this project will help families "come out of their shell" and help them with transitioning to a very different lifestyle than probably what many of them are used to. I am looking forward to the opportunity to positively impact their lives in whatever way I can! 

Service and Learning Forever Connected

Service is easily related to learning because of how it applies to everyday life. Individuals can take what they learn in the classroom and apply it in the real world. For example, actually visiting a Soup Kitchen as opposed to reading about one in a textbook is a more productive way to learn. By physically going somewhere students can experience first hand accounts of whatever it is that they may be learning. They can embrace themselves in their learning and gain a better perspective about various types of people and how they live their lives. Participating in a service project may cause someone to see something from a different viewpoint than they ever realized was possible prior to participating in the service project. The service experience may even force some students to reevaluate their own goals and values they have for their own lives. Depending on the service project students can learn about different cultures and compare them to their own. I think that as students, we must have a balance between learning in the classroom and learning outside of the classroom. By doing so, we can incorporate the necessary skills to grow as students. I always believed that you get more out of something by learning it firsthand, and I think I am right. However, each person is different and others may learn better by spending the majority of their time in the classroom. One thing is for sure, service and learning go hand in hand.