Romania
Ilinca
Anastasia
Maria
Ana
Rojin
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Slovenia
Tim.mp3 Matija.mp3 Ajda.mp3
Tim.pdf Matija.pdf Jure Kovač .pdf
Jure Hartman.pdf David.pdf Ajda.pdf Enja.pdf
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Italy
Caterina Tomasso, Erminia Gargano
Annalisa Catenacci
Flavia Ionta
Federico Macrì
Beatrice Golini Petraccone Caterina Tomasso Erminia Gargano Giuseppe Di Nallo M. Antonietta Giancane
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Portugal
In November 2016 a philosopher was invited to come to the school to discuss the concept of “Happiness”. Can helping the others make us happier?
Also, in November 2016, the students participated in a “Philosophical Cafe” in the school library to discuss what means “Solidarity” and the meaning of “Help”.
Volunteering. Students help to pick food in the supermarkets to the Food Bank national organization:
Volunteering at the local Hospital
The voluntary group is made up of two teachers and students who primarily engage themselves in carrying out the weekly visits to the patients at the local hospital as extracurricular activities but the scope of the project goes far beyond that. It has taken the role of coordinating a series of activities that are developed inside and outside the classroom walls and has tried to boost students’ awareness of the needs felt by some members of their community and make them feel willing to participate and have a word to say.
The members of the group are students from the professional courses that are being taught at our school and belong to the areas of health or social care.
The ones in the social care field have taken part in several activities aimed at humanizing the different areas in the hospital in order to reduce the strain, pressure and loneliness of long admissions mostly in the palliative care unit. These activities have taken the form of art exhibitions, some short concerts to celebrate special dates, such as the anniversary of the hospital or the patient’s day, or even poetry reading to commemorate the world poetry day on March 21st. The teachers of the Arts subjects have included in the year planning of their lessons activities and projects to be developed by the students in the classroom and then displayed at the hospital. So far they have already made clay and paper cribs in the Art lessons and also flower bunches to welcome spring.
The group also takes part in the Food Bank or the Red Cross campaigns as volunteers in raising the consumers’ awareness to the need of donating some food items at supermarket chains to be then delivered to those who have difficulty in purchasing the food they need to avoid hunger.
Some of the activities are prepared and carried out in classes; others are carried out at weekends or as extracurricular activities. In all activities students are backed up by teachers who also engage in the activities as volunteers.
The visible reward that comes out of this social commitment takes the form of a certificate that each student gets for joining in these activities. Beyond that there’s the sense of taking a stand and being socially involved, something that is closely related to what should be taught formally and informally in schools.
Here is a reflection of a student who has participated in the Voluntary Group:
Volunteer work undertaken by the class PTAS 15 in the local hospital at Fundão, Portugal.
I am Camila, a eighteen-year-old student from Fundão, Portugal. I am currently attending the second year of a three years course in Escola Secundária do Fundão – a secondary school - to become a Healthcare attendant. My class has got twenty one students and the testimony I am going to give is not just my own but rather the summing-up of the work carried out by the whole class.
Each day in the course we are attending we are being instructed to deal with people in need either because of their poor physical and mental health or because of their fragile social backgrounds. There are specific subjects where we learn how to improve our technical expertise in the several areas of the course so that we can provide a solid support to the patients we deal with. However, we do not only get technical skills but also know-how to grow as a person and have enough strength to be able to face the difficult situations we are likely to meet throughout our careers.
Parallel to our duties as students, we also take part in several activities and initiatives that work as an added value to our course. Therefore, we pay visits to elderly people who live in old age homes and undertake activities with them, we carry out activities at our school targeted at the other students, we join in the local Portuguese Food Bank activities by collecting food items to help end hunger in our community, and by organizing activities to fight bullying, violence and discrimination.
Now I would like to focus on the volunteer work me and my classmates have been doing since last school year with the help of two teachers from our school. This project is called “Volunteer work at Fundão hospital” and it started in 2007. In these latest years the students from the Health Care courses have been committed to fulfill their role as volunteers in their visits to the patients.
This project is developed weekly by the two teachers and two students from our class who go to the hospital in turns to visit the patients on the palliative and Medicine 3 wards. (the local hospital belongs to a larger healthcare facility located in the nearby city of Covilhã, a city that houses one of the Portuguese faculties of medicine).
During our visit to the patients we usually hand out the local newspaper to the patients that are able to read. The newspaper issues are offered to the school due to a partnership established between our school and the publishing company. The newspaper delivery is used as a pretext for starting the interaction with the patients. Quite often we work as a caring shoulder to lean on, a good listener, and patients end up by telling us details of their private lives and short or long time worries. We feel that the ability to listen brings comfort and some joy to those who are sick and weak. We feel that when we say goodbye until next week the pale smiles on the faces become a little brighter and eager for our return the following week.
The volunteer project allows us to meet a wide variety of people and personalities, each of them a unique individual with a unique story of life and prepares us to be more competent in our future job. The first approach to the patients is also a valued asset because we need to do a two-month work placement in each year of the course. This previous experience in the hospital environment gives us tools to fit in and adjust to our job as trainee students and it raises our awareness to the patient’s pivotal role in the health care system where we hope to accomplish our future professional and technical mission.
The interaction with the patients is also a relevant way to enrich ourselves becoming more socially aware and committed to the world we live in.
Camila Henriques, 12th Grade
Volunteering at the Hospital - some photos. Students read poetry to the patients.
After classes, or even during the classes, students with better marks help their mates in several subjects, in searching for information or even teaching them useful guidelines in order to prepare presentations.
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Poland
Volunteers' experiences - Bartosz Łobodziński (age 14)
Volunteers' experiences - Patrycja Kostecka (age 15)
Volunteers' experiences - Kacper Jaszczuk (age 16)
Volunteers' experiences - Julia Krzywicka (age 16)
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Greece
Chryssa Leonidas Katerina Konstantina