MOROCCO PORTFOLIO

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By Fartun Abdisalam

MOROCCO PORTFOLIO

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MOROCCO PORTFOLIO

Table of Contents Organisation Profile ................................................................................... 2

Reflection on Morocco volunteering .......................................................... 2

Details of my role and activities ................................................................. 2

Reflection on the effectiveness of your role ............................................... 5

Employability skills ..................................................................................... 5

How you will use the experience to develop your career path ................... 6

Reference ................................................................................................... 6

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Original Volunteers Ltd.

12 Upper King Street

1st Floor, Norwich

NR3 1HA

England

Organisation Profile

Original Volunteers is one of the UK’s leading independent advocacy volunteering organisations.

Some of the areas in which they work are; helping local disadvantaged children, educational

programs such as, painting project, English lessons, homeless feeding program, and camping.

They also run a centre for orphaned babies and children with Down syndrome DS, in

Marrakech.1 Every year, the organisation sends volunteers to more than 18 countries. Original

Volunteers, have 250 experienced and well educated local staff across the world. Original

volunteers’ works as a gap filler where the state and civil service are incapable to function either

because of lack of funding or expertise. They are a necessary part of capability building for young

disadvantaged people who may have otherwise fallen through the cracks of society. Culturally

DS and homeless children are part of an unwanted castaway group. The organisation gives

them a sense of belonging, shelter and love.

Reflection on Morocco volunteering

My volunteering experience in Morocco gave me an opportunity to undertake learning that can

be characterised as experiential. What this implied is that the learning was based on practical

hands on experience as opposed to observational. Aristotle says the best way to learn is by

doing .This can also be characterised as praxis because it is a combination of practice and

research. Nevertheless, Original Volunteers specialises in children education, especially in

teaching English, it helps to broaden children’s prospects eliminating language barrier which can

stop them accessing some of the benefits of the globalized world.

Details of my role and activities

Each day I was given two projects to complete. My day started from 9:00am with an hour lunch

and ended at 4:00pm. The projects were mainly working as groups and sometimes individuals

had roles to play. My first project was working with children that were born with Down syndrome

(DS) as well as homeless children.

1 Original Volunteers, n.d

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As I arrive at the DS centre, I was welcomed and introduced to all the children; everyone seemed

to be nice and kind. Unfortunately, I soon realised that I had no clue of what I was meant to do

there. I felt scared, nervous and confused as I watched my colleagues get on with their work.

The coordinator saw that I was struggling; she came over to explain my duties again and helped

me relax a little. Looking back at that day I feel that the overwhelming responsibility to care for

these children was one of the major issues I had. I felt ill-prepared for that level of responsibility.

This is the reason it took me a while to understand the concept of the project. I believe now

reflecting on that day that the project was unorganised and the work plan was inconsistent.

I am happy that I finally decided to overcome my fear and participate because now I appreciate

how extremely well-mannered, enthusiastic and eager the children were to learn English

language. I decided to read short stories to the kids as well as teaching them spellings and basic

greetings in English. This reminded me of when I was in school battling with English language;

struggle to learn the different verbs, adjectives and grammar. The relentless energy,

cheerfulness and enthusiasm exhibited by the children and teachers were unbelievable I am

truly and immensely inspired.

That first morning was an adventure and I will always remember how I overcame my fear and

made it enjoyable for all the participants. In the afternoon I went to volunteer on a second project

which took place in a centre for street kids. The Youth centre was located quite far from the city

and the journey seemed more difficult with the harsh Saharan Sun. The sun seemed to project

its entire heat on us. By the time I arrived at the centre, I was mentally, emotionally and physically

exhausted from the travel. I never thought I could go through from such weather.

Although I’ve complained that England is far too rainy, having 37 degrees every day is no better

alternative. I really thought I wouldn’t be physically able to complete my task that day.

Fortunately, as soon as I stepped into the centre’s garden and I saw all the enthusiastic and well-

mannered children eagerly waiting for what we had planned for them, the unpleasant journey

was forgotten. Seeing the smiles of the children gave me the energy and the inspiration to

perform my work well.

Like in DS centre, the manager of the Youth Centre welcomed us and told us the bit about the

centre. Afterwards, the children started singing, dancing and this continued for one hour & half.

When they have finished, the coordinator started explaining them what actives our group

planned for them. The activities included: teaching English, face-painting, games and colouring

books. I immediately took the role of teaching because most children kids were interested in

learning English, especially in improving their speaking skills and in English tales.

By looking at both projects, I can say that both were completely different and rewarding at the

same time. The first project was quite sensitive because I had to deal with children that had a

genetic disorder for which I had no previous experience. The second one was quite contented

and the children were bit older. I was surprised that all the children I have worked with in both

Centres were exceptionally well-mannered and keen to learn English.

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The second day, I went to Babies orphanage centre and my role was to hand out toys to the

babies. This centre was absolutely different from the other centres I had been to and it was heart-

breaking to see so many sick children from 2 month old to 10 years old. I was stunned, scared

and started to appreciate the luxury life I have. The sad truth was that their family was unable to

be with them because they live outside Marrakech and they cannot effort to live in the city. This

reminded me when I was volunteering in Manchester Hospital seeing so many terminally ill

children pushed in trollies.

The coordinator decided that we should volunteer in village outside Marrakesh. The reason was

that the schools were closed and usually the children go to the community centre that was close

to their areas. Therefore, coordinator decided we should do paintings at schools, orphanages

centres and then split us into groups. Specific tasks were shared among members of the team

but at the beginning, the tasks seemed difficult because we did understand context of the task.

After the first week, I was offered a position as a private tutor through the organisation for their

daughter. I was excited at the same time petrified because I did not have the experience required

for this role. The coordinator new the family and he was the one who suggested me to the family.

Thus, I accepted the role. I filled some forms and we exchange our contact details. I met the girl

I was surprised by her English especially when she told me that she started learning it 6 months

ago. We agreed that we should meet every day for the class in the community centre that was

close to where I lived.

One day, she invited me to her house which was far from the where I lived. Fortunately though

she had driver, so we didn’t had to take taxi or bus. As we get closer to her house I couldn’t help

but to admire the neighbourhood. I was fascinated by the architecture design of the houses

which reflected both modern and traditional Moroccan designs, blended with African influences.

I really loved the Islamic inscriptions on the walls of the houses, too! But I was also stroke but

the gap between rich and poor houses.

The lavish gardens, exquisite decorations and the deep use of contrasting colour in geometric

pattern, dominated the views of her house. While I was admiring the gorgeous villa, I really felt

that I am in a luxury holiday in Dubai. Suddenly, the girl tabs my shoulder and said “let’s go

inside”. When I stepped in the house I was breathless. I felt like I was in the royal palace from

1001 Nights and that I was a gust princess. An enormous crystal chandelier was hanging down,

the floors were made of marble, and the stairs had golden ornament, carved and polished so

diligently.

As I looked my right hand, there were lot sofas, in different shapes, colours, and were

geometrically positioned in the enormous living room. I felt like small child in candy shop don’t

know what to choose: and that is how my I can reflect my views because it was difficult to look

at one direction since every corner of the house offered splendid sights. Then I was warmly

welcomed by her mum as she said “welcome to our humble house”.

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I couldn’t understand what “modest” meant to them thus I didn’t know what to reply so I just

nodded my head in sign of respect. After brief introduction, I was giving the privilege and the

exclusive tour in the mansion: I felt like if I was in paradise and didn’t want to come out.

Then, the servant rang the bell which meant the dinner was ready. I was taken to the dinner

room where they have prepared luscious foods from different continents. Only the sight of the

food filled up my stomach. It was now close 8:00 pm and as the curfew was 11:00 pm. I was

worried that I might not even be home before 11:00 but fortunately her mum gave a lift. When I

came back home, everybody was waiting me to hear my story. Never in my life had I had such

a large audience to hear my story. I had no choice but share my breathtakingly experience.

Finally, reflecting back the experiences, I can say that, it was enlightening to work with different

project everyday but they all aimed same goal. On several occasions, the centres had prepared

lunch for us to thank us. They were always delighted to teach us about their culture, tradition

and language.

Reflection on the effectiveness of your role

My time in Marrakesh was enlightening in many ways: I learned about the different cultural

system, the people have different pace of life and their life is mainly base on community. I have

also learned a lot about myself, my own personal values, priorities and my future goals. The

famous philosopher John Dewy said that “we do not learn from experience...we learn from

reflecting on experience”2. What this implies that human experience is dense with information

which requires pauses to scan the experiences.

Since I started volunteering in Marrakesh, my performance has been improving steadily. For the

first week, my performance wasn’t exceptional because everything seemed alien and

complicated. Although I had the skills that was required for the role since I obtained from the

course, but I wasn’t confident enough to practice. However, as week passed, my performance

was progressively improving because I put my skills into practice. As I gradually get to know the

local people I dramatically improved my communication skills since this gave me self-confident

to practice my language skills.

Employability skills

During my volunteering I gained several skills; adaptability, time management, communication,

self-management and working with team. As we living in globalized world, adaptability to other

culture is extremely important. As famous Chinese proverb says, “the wise adapt themselves to

circumstances, as water molds itself to the Picher”3. In this regard, in order to be successful at

the voluntary placement I have to adapt to the different circumstances including lowering my

expectation. This experience immensely improved my time management skills; for example, I

had the morning project from 9:00 to 12:00 then I had teaching English classes in the afternoon,

2 Stefano et al 2014 3 Etech, 2014

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therefore, this tough me how to balance my time effectively. Team work was vital in this

experience since it involved working with teams. Therefore, this has allowed me to manage my

time effectively, to understand the team dynamics, to take responsibility and finally to understand

my own role its strength and weaknesses.

Nevertheless, it was a positive experience for me and I learnt to work under pressure, developed

problem solving skills in a foreign cultural context, and I believe these are transferable skills that

will help me in in my research career as well as in development after my studies.

In addition to this, I have learnt that people get more fulfilment from solving their own problems

as opposed to an ‘outsider’ coming to do it for them. I have also learned a lot about myself, my

own personal values, priorities and my future goals. On personal level, this experience had tough

me how to be resilience, inner strength and self-confidence when faced difficult situation. It also

tough me that every one of us is empowered to make a positive difference in this world.

How you will use the experience to develop your career path

My undergrad development modules focused a lot on the MDG goals their relevance and

whether or not a more holistic approach to development can be taken. I have read numerous

academic writers; dependency, structuralist and neo-liberal, all having a claim to a policy they

feel would work for the global south. My gravitation leans more towards Amarta Sen and his

notion of capacity building by focusing on people and countries individual needs.

Volunteering at Original Volunteers re-enforces my acceptance of Sen’s development theories

and will guide my decision for further post-grad studies. Working with the disadvantage gave me

the insight that state policies should not only cater to economic growth but focus on institutional

building that will support educational and societal growth.

Reference

Aristotle (n.d) The Nicomachean Ethics. [Online PDF] available at

<https://experience.ku.edu/sites/experience.ku.edu/files/docs/AndiW_ELSym.pdf> [Accessed

on 15th March 2015]

Ethec (2014) ADAPTABILITY: Can you bend without breaking? [Online web page] available

at http://www.etechgs.com/blog/post/adaptability-can-you-bend-without-breaking.aspx

[Accessed on 21st March 2015]

Stefano G et al. (2014) Learning By Thinking: How Reflection Improves Performance.

Working Knowledge. [Online webpage] available at

<https://www.satherhehttp://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7498.htmlalth.org/blog.php?id=234>

[Accessed on 15th March 2015]

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TEFL Certificate