How We Got Our Start

I’ve been running Helping Hands since September 2018 and I’ve learned a lot along the way. Waking up early Saturday morning to teach a group of children English and math was a struggle but it ended up being one of the things I look forward to during the week. Once we woke up, my family and I started making the snacks we would give to the children to take home with them, we cleared the cars out of the garage to set up the tables and whiteboards, and make sure all the worksheets were printed, had names on them, and were in the right order. At first, getting all of this done before 11am was a struggle, but eventually, we became really efficient and finished all our preparations with time to spare. I split up the children based on age group, so it would be a bit easier to teach the lessons. The younger children were all around 4-5 years old and mainly worked on their ABCs, simple math facts, and reading. We witnessed a 4 year old girl named Nolwazi go from a shy child who barely knew English, to a child that started to read. The older kids had an age span from 7-13 years old. It was a struggle to find lessons that would work for them all. I tried working on the same topics such as nouns and verbs and passing out worksheets with various difficulty levels. It sounded easy enough, but it was a lot harder to execute it than I had previously thought. Some children finished their worksheet and moved onto the others before some had even finished the third question. It was hard to juggle everything, but eventually I got the hang of it. We did activities as a group that would provide personalized learning but would also be fun. For example, I asked the children a multiplication question and if they got it right, they would shoot a basket. Activities like this made sure that all the children were learning, engaged, and having fun at the same time. We even took a trip to the American International School of Johannesburg, the school I attended at the time. We took a tour and even conducted science experiments in one of the labs! Things were running smoothly until COVID-19 hit Johannesburg. At first, there were only a couple cases, so we continued with precaution. Everyone was wearing masks and washing their hands before starting the lesson. Soon after, South Africa went under strict lockdown to prevent the spread, so we had to stop Helping Hands for a while. We tried to think of ways to continue virtually, but at the time, it wasn’t possible. Now, we have found a virtual system that works for us even though we are now in different time zones. I wake up early on Saturday morning and start the zoom. Sharing my screen with the whiteboard feature has worked the best. Only a fraction of the students can attend, but I want to do my best to help the students that can. We are still figuring everything out, but it has been going well so far. Overall, founding and running Helping Hands has been one of the best experiences I’ll ever have and it gave me the chance to grow as a leader and a person.