Having finished the student2student program with my reading buddy Liliana and now having the opportunity to reflect on everything that I have learnt over the past 20 weeks, I can honestly say that the program surpassed all of my expectations. I remember going into the program hoping that I would develop a strong bond with my reading buddy and hoping that I could improve her reading skills a little bit however I never imagined just how much I would personally gain from the program and I am so glad that I took part in it.
I’ve always found it strange that we label volunteering activities as “service” as it seems to imply a great one-way act of kindness in performing an activity with no return, completely ignoring the benefit that we almost always receive and the student2student program has been no exception. Over the past few months, my reading buddy Liliana and I developed such a strong friendship that even when I was short of time or had a busy schedule (eg. during exam weeks), calling Liliana was never a chore but something I looked forward to. Being able to chat to her and unwind while also hoping that I was assisting her in the development of her reading skills, the calls that were supposed to be twenty minutes often lasted much longer as we would read the books assigned and often chat along the way. Despite never actually having met Liliana in person or ever being able to really visualise her in my head (we even tried physically describing ourselves to each other), by the end of the program we knew each other well and it certainly didn’t feel like a friendship that had only formed over the phone!
In terms of the tangible and measurable achievements from the program, Liliana’s reading skills definitely improved and I hope that I had a role to play in that! The books that we were reading towards the end of the program were clearly more difficult than those at the beginning and even small details such as Lili picking up and remembering words that she had previously had difficulty were rewarding. At the end of the program, Lili was also tested by a member of the student2student program and she was shown to be only 6 months behind her reading age, a huge improvement on the approx. 2 year gap that she was in at the beginning of the program.
Although I gained a lot out of the program, there were certainly moments of difficulty, particularly in terms of finding the right times to call and also keeping on top of my own time management. For example, there was a period of around a week in which we couldn’t fit in a single call as we would constantly miss each other and this mostly came down to scheduling. There were, of course, times where we would schedule a call but an event would pop up or something and in this cases it was just a matter of calling the next day or day after to make up. Another trouble was that Lili would only be at her mum’s house on certain days and at her nan’s house on others so although initially I only called her at her mum’s, we eventually decided that it might be easier if I also called her at her nan’s. Unfortunately, this also meant that sometimes Lili would forget her books at her nan’s so there would be days where instead of reading the prescribed books, we would just have a chat and organise another day. I also didn’t call up the Smith family early enough on one of the instances so Lili and I didn’t have books to read for about a week, so instead we made do and Lili just read aloud one of her own books and she simply spelled out words that she was unfamiliar with or stuck on. This worked surprisingly well and we were able to get through the week with 3 whole calls of reading!
One of the biggest challenges though was definitely when I lost my phone in New Zealand and subsequently all of my contacts! This meant that as soon as I got back from my holidays, I had to contact the smith family for their phone number again and it took about a week to do so.
From these challenges, I have definitely learnt a lot of new skills and developed some pre-existing ones. For example, my time management definitely became important as I had to schedule calls and was held accountable for them, even when time was tight (eg. during exam weeks). My communication skills were also developed, particularly in the early stages as I was just getting to know Lili and her mum and even her nan and pop. Ultimately I think the biggest take away from this activity has been the value of making new bonds and friendships with people and how a little can go a long way – our series of calls every few days really added up to a lot! I would recommend this program to anyone in a heartbeat and I can’t wait to find a similar service activity for next year although it definitely seems like this one will be hard to beat!
I’ve always found it strange that we label volunteering activities as “service” as it seems to imply a great one-way act of kindness in performing an activity with no return, completely ignoring the benefit that we almost always receive and the student2student program has been no exception. Over the past few months, my reading buddy Liliana and I developed such a strong friendship that even when I was short of time or had a busy schedule (eg. during exam weeks), calling Liliana was never a chore but something I looked forward to. Being able to chat to her and unwind while also hoping that I was assisting her in the development of her reading skills, the calls that were supposed to be twenty minutes often lasted much longer as we would read the books assigned and often chat along the way. Despite never actually having met Liliana in person or ever being able to really visualise her in my head (we even tried physically describing ourselves to each other), by the end of the program we knew each other well and it certainly didn’t feel like a friendship that had only formed over the phone!
In terms of the tangible and measurable achievements from the program, Liliana’s reading skills definitely improved and I hope that I had a role to play in that! The books that we were reading towards the end of the program were clearly more difficult than those at the beginning and even small details such as Lili picking up and remembering words that she had previously had difficulty were rewarding. At the end of the program, Lili was also tested by a member of the student2student program and she was shown to be only 6 months behind her reading age, a huge improvement on the approx. 2 year gap that she was in at the beginning of the program.
Although I gained a lot out of the program, there were certainly moments of difficulty, particularly in terms of finding the right times to call and also keeping on top of my own time management. For example, there was a period of around a week in which we couldn’t fit in a single call as we would constantly miss each other and this mostly came down to scheduling. There were, of course, times where we would schedule a call but an event would pop up or something and in this cases it was just a matter of calling the next day or day after to make up. Another trouble was that Lili would only be at her mum’s house on certain days and at her nan’s house on others so although initially I only called her at her mum’s, we eventually decided that it might be easier if I also called her at her nan’s. Unfortunately, this also meant that sometimes Lili would forget her books at her nan’s so there would be days where instead of reading the prescribed books, we would just have a chat and organise another day. I also didn’t call up the Smith family early enough on one of the instances so Lili and I didn’t have books to read for about a week, so instead we made do and Lili just read aloud one of her own books and she simply spelled out words that she was unfamiliar with or stuck on. This worked surprisingly well and we were able to get through the week with 3 whole calls of reading!
One of the biggest challenges though was definitely when I lost my phone in New Zealand and subsequently all of my contacts! This meant that as soon as I got back from my holidays, I had to contact the smith family for their phone number again and it took about a week to do so.
From these challenges, I have definitely learnt a lot of new skills and developed some pre-existing ones. For example, my time management definitely became important as I had to schedule calls and was held accountable for them, even when time was tight (eg. during exam weeks). My communication skills were also developed, particularly in the early stages as I was just getting to know Lili and her mum and even her nan and pop. Ultimately I think the biggest take away from this activity has been the value of making new bonds and friendships with people and how a little can go a long way – our series of calls every few days really added up to a lot! I would recommend this program to anyone in a heartbeat and I can’t wait to find a similar service activity for next year although it definitely seems like this one will be hard to beat!