Thursday 22 June 2017

Reasons Why You Should Conduct Service Learning In Slum Setting

By Martha Ward


People living in the slums have financial challenges that highly contribute to the denial of chances for their children to attend schools and colleges to gain their basic education. However, some of the charity organizations are trying to bail out the children and youth demise by integrating service learning in slum setting with other financial aid. The whole process has its predicaments, but there have been outstanding benefits for the slums that it has been tried out.

By introducing service learning in the slums, you will be giving the residents a chance to get the basic education when at the same time you will be offering skills to them. The success of the project will be determined by the turnout of the shantytown dwellers. Therefore proper sensitization on the importance of attending to the program should be done before investing at large in the whole project.

Every shantytown has its unique challenges, and this commands different modes of approach. Ensure you have done a thorough research on the issues that affect the residents of the slum setting you want to introduce the program. This will help in coming up with the skills training that should give them a chance to work in the locally available jobs.

Researching on possible job opportunities within the area and understanding the major challenge in the slum will be a good base for setting up the learning program. Focus the training in the skills needed and the availability of jobs. This will make sure that the youths get jobs after the few months training and this will have mitigated on their social economic impact.

When starting the service in learning in the slums, inform the targeted group that apart from the basic class lessons, they will be taking lessons that can give them skills. The project should equip itself with a range of courses that the youths can choose from depending on their liking. The common courses that can give them a chance for self-employment include, dressmaking, barbering, hairdressing, masonry and many others.

The people attending and undertaking the service training will be of all ages, and you should be ready to handle them. Hire teachers and other service providers who can mingle positively with these needy people. Your staff should be to guide and counsel those taking the program because they will be coming with different problems on an individual basis. This will improve their morale and will give them more reasons to attend the program

Invite regularly mentors and other high ranking officials who have grown and managed it from the slums. They will be inspirational to the attendants of the service learning and can boost the morale of the slum learners. They will be taken as role models for these students, and this will make them focused on the course.

No child or youth can learn on an empty stomach, and a feeding program for the slum dwellers should be established. Work together with the state government on how to facilitate food and other basic stuff like the sanitary towels. There are also some donor funding agencies that support institutions that enhance lives of slum community, and they can be resourceful too.




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