By sven mauleon | Cofounder, volunteer
2021. Our Openmind Acid Test
Adapting to Covid. Bringing online learning to the underprivileged.
You build. Something disrupts. How to adapt, rebuild? Covid put a sudden stop to everything. Volunteers could not travel. Schools, our Center closed. Trainees and staff had to go home, no camps only restrictions, lock downs and costs, like so many other!
We miss them all, trainees, campers and volunteers! We don’t want Covid to be the end, too many NGOs and social entrepreneurs perished
But we don’t want to lose our network of amazing friends and supporters of local and overseas volunteers, trainee alumni, donors. So, rethink! Go online?
We worked with alumni and volunteers to find creative ways to help village, migrant and refugee children online! While we however managed to have some camps when still possible.
A Hybrid Camp. We prepared for a big hybrid camp. Students and local leaders onsite and volunteers online. But cancelled with more Covid restrictions!
A Center in Transit. We agreed to move our Center. Why pay rent and other costs when we cannot host young students or volunteers. We look forward to when they can return!
Taking OMP Online, with our accumulated experiences and skills. Together with talented alumni, overseas volunteers from Cisco, we prepared to go online using WebEx and finding best ways to engage students in inspiring online learning.
Trying an Open House Online for students to meet volunteers, guest speakers for culture exchanges, practice English and have fun. We will restart in 2022.
Engaging Students Online. How to engage disadvantaged students online, to encourage them to use their smartphones for learning!
A Virtual Camp. We set out to develop a program for teenagers with alumni and volunteers from Cisco, to develop engaging online activities. We learned to use WebEx, digital tools, whiteboards, breakout sessions, much more.
Many great ideas popped up! With WebEx we felt comfortable to host online programs.
Some voices
‘Online collaboration is not new to us. Working from home is the new norm. We are excited to share experience, best practices and digital tools with OpenmindProjects,’ says Cisco’s Stacy Pereira, from the Asia Pacific, Japan and China Strategy & Planning Lead.
Michelle Jeong also from Cisco, adds, ‘I’m so glad to help children using our technology. When I worked with OpenmindProjects alumni, I was impressed with their passion to support their communities. We’re really looking forward and committed to this digital journey with OpenmindProjects!’
OMP alumni James, now studying international relations, ‘Covid, a new challenge? It is unable to stop us from learning! Me and my friends will help make students and schools highly benefit from this initiative!’
Says Peter Gardiner, volunteering from Australia, ‘I was blown away by the videos created by the students I worked with. Goal oriented so students worked towards producing a usable asset! Really loved working with students, local OMP, James and Toto, Thai volunteers Dow and Dream and overseas volunteers from Australia, Singapore, South Korea, China, Columbia, India and Japan’
Openmind Toto,‘It was heartwarming to work with these students, disadvantaged, stateless, many disabled, yet optimistic! They plan to be English teachers, programmers, small business owners. Who wouldn’t want to support them?’
Online Learning, based Openmind pedagogy - students learn English while learning about important topics with volunteers. Search, discuss, summarize, present, publish on social media.
We needed an online program hosted and moderated by OMP, where students meet volunteers in virtual classrooms. We needed a topic, a challenge. Why not the obvious, COVID-19?
We wanted to learn how easy or difficult it would be to go online! We agreed a pilot with some schools. Hoping to scale up next year. But we need more volunteers and donations for that!
Turn Covid into Opportunities - schools, student teams and teachers in an 8-week program. Enthusiastic Thai and overseas volunteers from Australia, China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, the UK and the US. Challenge the students to suggest opportunities for learning and environmental protection, based Covid experiences!
This is what happened. We introduced our ideas to everyone. They wanted us to host this online program. Students attended from schools for disabled, migrants/refugees, mixed Buddhist/Muslim students in the North, South and West. Helped the students to learn and also to find out about obstacles, opportunities when going online!
Students and volunteers learned about the effects of COVID-19. Searched online and suggested - in presentations and videos - how to turn the Covid experiences into opportunities, to learn online, to protect the environment!
Some things we learned - students and volunteers were enthusiastic.
But moving from onsite to online learning for village students with limited English is a challenge! How to engage them online? Easier, face to face! How to compensate for that face-to-face time? How to encourage interaction between volunteers and students when you don’t get to know each other the same way as face to face? How to get to know all the students, make them feel as comfortable as when face to face? We learned and bring those insights to future programs.
Tech issues too, yes, of course, many! Our village, migrant students are not as well off as city and middle-class students!
BUT - we do look forward to welcoming back volunteers sometime next year!
And, it was heartwarming to work with these poor, stateless, disabled yet so cheerful and optimistic students. Some want to be English teachers, some programmers or small business owners. It makes all of us involved grateful and want to go on!
This will be 2022, with your and other friends’ help.
More online programs for more schools.
More overseas and local volunteers.
Online training for overseas and local volunteers/interns.
An Online Center, a community, to serve and support volunteers, students, school programs and training for local trainees and volunteers/interns.
A hub where volunteers meet students, supporters communicate, exchange ideas, where we share free and useful information. Online Camps together with online volunteers. And finally.
Welcome back sometime in 2022, volunteers and young students!
OpenmindProjects, depends on volunteers and donations to support disadvantaged students in Thailand and Southeast Asia.
Donate to our 2022 programs - https://www.globalgiving.org/donate/75647/openmind-projects-foundation/
Volunteer, apply online from www.openmindprojects.net or send an email to info@openmindprojects.net
Sven and Gaweechat - Wishing you a Happier 2022
It was heartwarming to work online with the students and volunteers in our first online project.
Poor village students should also get a chance to learn online! We bring programs and volunteers to them.
Thank you, donors and volunteers for your support. Without you we could not go on!
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