Hiromi and Jiyeon's CAS Project: Helping SOS Village d'Enfant

Hiromi and I (Jiyeon) have decided to have initiate our CAS project in a non-profit organization called SOS Village D'Enfants. The village encompasses a school for the children, playgrounds, and small living compounds for the families there. The organization attempts to make family-like compounds by having a mother, a father, and a number of children, who were originally orphans, in the same household. We chose this organization because we noticed that numerous organizations within Dakar were funded with large amounts of money, whereas SOS Village D'Enfants relatively did not receive much attention and donation although it was lacking of basic needs and supplies from time to time. After visiting the organization, or village, we loved the family-like atmosphere and wanted to make a positive difference to the community. As students from ISD, we wanted to challenge ourselves to be more involved into the community outside of our school campus and be engaged with other people.  We are planning to organize various activities within the village in order to support, assist, or bring positive outcomes to the community. For example, the first project we are anticipating to arrange is painting the walls of the village with the children so we can make the village more beautiful and colorful; we believe that through this activity, we may be able to not only allow other ISD students to have the opportunity to be more involved outside of the campus, but also to collaborate with the children from the organization in order to work together harmoniously, hopefully presenting to them a valuable experience. We also plan to organize other activities such as teaching English, teaching sports (volleyball or basketball), and doing  a food/clothes drive for their necessities.   Our CAS project focuses onto the three areas, creativity, activity, and service,  with an appropriate balance, and we hope that through this project, we are able to be more aware of the community around us. Furthermore, through supporting their needs through initiating activities constantly and persistently, we desire to bring a small, but positive, change to the environment and the community.