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 Brainstorming words that reflect the spirit of VE |  My fist Liga de Deportes |  Basic 10: Clase de Teatro At Colegio Anakena, I assist the theatre teacher. Basic 10 is a class of adolescents with intellectual disabilities. This picture was taken after a massive face-painting shenanigan. :o)
|  Clase de Teatro Face painting shenanigans with the Basic 10 class (adolescents with intellectual disabilities) at Colegio Anakena. |  Arrrg! |  Fun with face-paint |  Beach vacation When the girls at Promesa (the hogar I work at) went on their end of the summer vacation, they brought me along! What a great (and intense) experience! Being with the girls 24/7 was difficult, but I became much closer to them during this time and am so grateful I was able to come along. |  Searching for seashells |  Mi calle This is the street (Santa Beatriz) that I live on. My apartment is in the blue building on the left. I love the neighborhood (Provedencia) I live in. It's about half an hour away from the hogar and an hour from the school I volunteer at, but it's worth it! |  Leaving the beach |  Más positive reinforcement por favor At the hogar I volunteer at, I quickly noticed the girls do not receive a lot of positive reinforcement. From what I have learned, positive reinforcement (“catching” a kid doing something you want them to do and rewarding it) is an effective way to make that behavior more likely, in contrast with negative reinforcement (punishing bad behavior). At the hogar, the girls are rarely congratulated or given attention for the good things they did, but are almost always scolded or punished when they were caught doing something bad. There was, and still is, a heavy focus on punishing girls who behave badly and little encouragement to do good things-- just to stay out of trouble. Not surprisingly, most of the girls are not well-behaved, and their behavior does not seem to be improving. In an effort to add some positive reinforcement into the girls lives, I created a token point-esque system in order to reward the girls for good behavior. I created a poster titled “eres una chiquilla asombrosa” (you are an awesome girl) with each girls name. Every time one of the volunteers catches one of the girls doing something especially good, we award her a sticker, and every Friday each girl can choose has many small prizes (candies, stickers, etc) as stickers they received that week. So far the activity is goning very well. It makes me happy to see how excited the girls are when the receive a sticker. Each girl is aware of how many stickers she has and many of them can even tell you what they did to receive each sticker. Its always hard when Friday comes along and some of the girls who haven’t received a sticker beg for a prize, but in the end they seem to understand what the prizes are for and that they need to be awarded a sticker in order to receive a prize.
|  |  Photo courtesy of a 5-year-old The girls at the hogar LOVE playing with my camera. It's hilarious to look through the some 100 pictures on my camera after I've let them use it...lots of pouty faces and peace signs.
I wish I could include some pictures of the girls from their "photo shoots", but I don't have permission (for good reason) to share photos which reveal any of their identities. Bummer! |  Ha! |  Brother and sister |  A glimpse inside the hogar | 
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|  September 2011 Volunteer Class
|  Lena
|  Carnival!
|  New friends
|  Vamos a leer!!
|  January 2012 Volunteer Class
|  Carnival games
|  Sharing a story
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|  New donations-- thanks!
|  Festival de Arte- Colegio Anakena
|  September 2011 orientation
|  Liga de Deportes
|  New books!
|  Festival de Art- Promesa
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|  Jan 2012 volunteers
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|  Vamos a leer!!
|  Los Navios Volunteers
|  Cereal necklaces
|  Carnival 2012
|  Carnival 2012
After a summer of reading during our !Vamos a Leer program!, the volunteers and kids celebrated reaching reading goals with Carnaval. Kids who accomplished their goals participated in fun games, ate a healthy lunch and enjoyed an afternoon at the pool! |  Jornada 2012-- the HaHa game
|  Jornada 2012
Every VE class of volunteers goes to "Jornada." A volunteer retreat, a weekend away from the loud noises of the city, a chance to take deep breaths and give volunteers a time to reflect on their experiences. It's here we gain insight from our fellow volunteers and learn new techniques for helping the children we serve. On Sunday, we leave riding the bus back into Santiago with renewed energies to work with the kids and show them that they truly deserve love. |  !Vamos a Leer program! 2012
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