Thanks for your initial entries! They are great and I enjoyed reading about your activities.
Keep up the great work!
February 2011 Archives
Hey everyone!
For my CSL project I immediately knew that I wanted to do something different. I have worked with kids in sport many times and I wanted to get a new perspective so I chose to work with the elderly at the Ebenezer apartments. Originally it seemed like a difficult task to find something that I would be able to do that involved sport or exercise being an environment where many occupants have obstacles to participating. Once I learned more about the organization, it was very easy to find a fit.
I found out that there are so many opportunities to be a part of at Ebenezer. There are so many activities run by the staff that it feels like more like a week at club med than an old folks home. When it comes to sport and activity, there are lots of opportunities. The opportunities are just more fitting to their ability. I found that exercise for them is sometimes difficult, but most of the occupants are ready for the challenge. For some people exercise may defined as playing wii or even walking to dinner.
I chose to be a part of the dance class at Ebenezer's Loren building as well as do other things such as help with holiday activities and take pictures of events. So far it has been really great. I quickly found out that I will learn much more about life from these people than they will learn from me. When I dance with them, a simple question will turn into 5 or 6 dances to finish the conversation. Some of the people in the class cannot walk without a walker, but because they love to dance, they end up moving more during our class than they do the rest of the day.
The other day I worked the 3 different Valentines Day dance parties that the Ebenezer building. At one of the parties a woman danced the entire party from start to finish. Everyone was extremely excited about this, and at first I didn't know why. I found out later that the woman that was dancing was deaf and blind. She rarely did any activities due to her condition and nobody would have expected her to be the one to take over the dance floor. This really showed me the true power that sport and exercise can have, and how it can help people persevere through diversity.
Next week I am teaching a salsa lesson to the dance class upon their request. I am very interested to see how it goes and their reaction.
Hi everyone!
This is Ayah Fannoun. My community service project has been working alongside Jaime at the CAPI female-only exercise class. So far we have been to four classes and it has been a positive experience, for myself and, I think, for the women who attend.
As Jaime mentioned, most of the women who have consistently been attending are African American or Somali. However, the last class had almost double the number of women with women from Indian, Pakistani, and Burma backgrounds joining us. It was great to see how all of the women were encouraging each other and, by the end of class, giving high-fives all around. Many of them said they would be back this week and bring more women with them.
It has been very exciting to see their enthusiasm for exercising. One example of this can be seen in the oldest participant, a Somali woman who is probably around 70 years old. After coming to the first class, she returned the second week with new running shoes and immediately began jogging laps around the gym chanting "exercise!"
We have been encouraging them to not only exercise in class but to take what they learn and workout at home during the rest of the week. This week, Jaime and I are going to encourage all of the women to set a few goals for themselves that they would like to achieve by the end of the class in a few months. A CAPI employee who attends the class, Saharla, is also going to bring each woman a pedometer to further motivate them to be active outside of the exercise class. I hope that each woman who attends will leave the class with more motivation to live a healthy lifestyle.
For my CSL project, I am volunteering at the Courage Center in Golden Valley, which is about a 15 minute drive from campus. I went in for a volunteer orientation earlier in the month and learned about the mission and goals of the organization, and how they strive to provide equal opportunities for people to reach their full potential in athletics and all other aspects of life, regardless of physical abilities or disabilities. In addition to the application and orientation, I also was required to set up an additional interview which I completed earlier this week in order to become a certified volunteer with the organization. My actual volunteering experience with the Courage Center will start tomorrow (Feb. 19). I am working at a wheelchair basketball tournament organized by the Courage Center which is being held at the Lifetime Fitness Center in St. Louis Park. For this tournament, I will do various jobs, ranging from registration to managing the score clock and scoreboard, to even refereeing some of the games. Throughout the semester, I will work at similar events centered around quad sports including basketball, rugby, and soccer. I will also have the opportunity to work in the aquatic center within the Courage Center and assist individuals in strengthening, stretching, and range of motion exercises through time in the pool. As it gets nicer outside, and the Courage Center is able to move more of their activities outside, there will be that many more opportunities for me as a volunteer. I am looking forward to my time as a volunteer with the organization, and am excited to give what I can to the individuals as well as learn from them. -Eli Fark
Hi!
This is Jaime Wilt. For my community service, I am helping out with a fitness class at the Luxton Park Recreation Center in the Glendale Townhomes neighborhood. The majority of the residents in this neighborhood are immigrants or minorities.
The women's fitness class was started by CAPI which is an organization that provides a wide variety of services to assist immigrants. CAPI has partnered with the Healthy Housing, Healthy Community program whose goal is to reduce chronic disease caused by smoking and obesity. Through this program, CAPI is trying to eliminate smoking within the townhomes and provide physical activity opportunities for the residents.
The women who is leading the fitness class, Berdine, is a leader within the community. She works at the food shelf in the neighborhood and leads a walking bus to walk the children home from school during the week. Berdine did not have any prior experience with teaching fitness classes, but she did shadow a fitness instructor for a day. The workers at CAPI had hoped to sign her up for a workshop on teaching fitness classes but it was too expensive for the organization. Ayah and I work with Berdine to plan and teach the fitness class each Friday.
There have been four classes so far and three to five women have attended each class. All of the women are African American or Somalian and their ages range from about 40 to 70. A couple of the women do not speak English very well so Saharla, a CAPI employee, translates the class for them. It is clear that the women have not had much exposure to exercise so we have to make sure the exercises are clear and simple and that we start out slowly. We are encouraging the women to continue the exercises outside of class and may be getting a scale to help them track their progress. It has been great to see the women's enthusiasm and desire to exercise.
Hi all,
This is Megan Ryan, in case you can't tell from my x500 number.
For my CSL project, I am a mentor at Homework and Hoops within PPL. My first two weeks were spent training, which was unexpectedly intense. I suppose they can't let just anyone get close to their kids, but I really learned a lot about building relationships and using "powerful" questions that I think will help me be a better mentor.
On my first day, I learned that I was paired with Jasmine. She is from Togo and is struggling with English, so I was chosen as her mentor because I speak her native language, French. We are both new to HnH, so at first it was a little quite, but I think we really warmed up to each other towards the end of the day.
Throughout the night, I helped her set goals, work on homework, and play some fun learning games. There was a time for fitness at the beginning of the program; the activity was playing soccer in the gym. As you all should probably know by now, I love soccer, so I was a little crushed when my "mentee" said she wanted to play games in the rec room instead. The program is mostly Latino and African, so pretty much every boy went to play soccer, but all the girls played Ping-Pong, pool, or "carpet ball". This was an interesting observation because it was easy to see the gender gap. I thought race was going to be a big barrier for these kids, but in HnH, they are all "different", so to say, so that isn't as big of an issue as it might be outside of the community center's walls.
So, I didn't get to play soccer. However, Jasmine and I did play foosball with one of her friend's and her mentor. I gotta tell you, it was fun! I'm actually not too bad, and after playing a few kick-offs and laughing at our various mistakes, Jasmine and I really connected. It may not have been real soccer, but at least now I can say that I played at (foosball) World Cup USA '94. As a striker, no less!
Perhaps next time we'll get to the gym. Something I realized while playing foosball is that it was a lot easier to have fun when we weren't worrying about making mistakes, and maybe that's what the girls at HnH fear. Boys might be a little intense about their sports, but if the girls could join in without feeling embarrassed, than I think rec time might become a bit more productive in the exercise department.
À Bientôt!
The program I chose to participate in takes place at the Native American Community center around the south side of Minneapolis. I go there on Mondays and Wednesdays to help out with the children there. During the time the kids spent at the community center we provide them dinner, a special activity, mandatory homework time, as well as recreational time. Each week the special activity changes. This past Monday their was a special focus on Native American health issues,so a woman came in to discuss nutrition, exercise, and emotion management with the children. Unfortunately that same night their was a basketball game being played in the gym where the kids have their recreational time. All the kids were upset they wouldn't be able to play kickball like they always do because the only room available was full of windows. Well, I suggested a game to one of the full time employees called "three's too many". This game is a variation of tag and the kids loved it! It was awesome to be able to introduce them to something new since before Monday they never wanted to even think about anything else. The most important connection To the class that I have noticed is how socioeconomic status and gender has affected their sports participation. When I asked a couple of the girls said that they weren't able to be on teams because either their parents didn't want to take the time to get them to games and practices, or they were specifically asked to take care of other kids in their family. These answers were only given by the older girl on Wednesdays and their ages ranged from about 11 to 15. So far it has been great to work with the kids :)
The program I chose to participate in takes place at the Native American Community center around the south side of Minneapolis. I go there on Mondays and Wednesdays to help out with the children there. During the time the kids spent at the community center we provide them dinner, a special activity, mandatory homework time, as well as recreational time. Each week the special activity changes. This past Monday their was a special focus on Native American health issues,so a woman came in to discuss nutrition, exercise, and emotion management with the children. Unfortunately that same night their was a basketball game being played in the gym where the kids have their recreational time. All the kids were upset they wouldn't be able to play kickball like they always do because the only room available was full of windows. Well, I suggested a game to one of the full time employees called "three's too many". This game is a variation of tag and the kids loved it! It was awesome to be able to introduce them to something new since before Monday they never wanted to even think about anything else. The most important connection To the class that I have noticed is how socioeconomic status and gender has affected their sports participation. When I asked a couple of the girls said that they weren't able to be on teams because either their parents didn't want to take the time to get them to games and practices, or they were specifically asked to take care of other kids in their family. These answers were only given by the older girl on Wednesdays and their ages ranged from about 11 to 15. So far it has been great to work with the kids :)
Community Service Learning as a class activity provides students with an opportunity to apply course academic content with real world experiences. Since this course is a social science course that looks at sports and physical activity as parts of culture and also serves as a diversity and social justice course in the liberal education curriculum, students are partnered with diverse community groups and activities related to health, physical activity and sport. This type of community engagement allows students to be exposed to groups of people who are often marginalized and/or underserved in society (e.g., people with disabilities, immigrant populations, the elderly). There are many opportunities for learning associated with this activity including a broader vision of socio-cultural conditions, acquiring a sense of civic engagement and social responsibility, and fostering global citizenship. Academic knowledge is critical to learning facts and theory, however, practical application of that knowledge has the potential to call us into actions that foster greater respect, equity, and inclusion. Each of us is more comfortable with who and what we know. The real challenge is to be able to venture outside of what is safe and comfortable, to explore new environments around people we don't know. We have much to offer others and they have much to offer us. What will we learn from these experiences? This blog has been created to share experiences and to make connections to course content. Please join the conversation.
