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Issue 005, September 2013: Open for a Fresh Start and Making a Difference: One Smile at a time
The site was buzzing for Open Day at the beginning of the month

Open for a Fresh Start


Every August our English courses take a break whilst our teachers have their holidays, but that makes September all the more important as a fresh start, launching us into the new academic year. This year it was even more so, as we hosted our very first Open House/Open Day event.


To give people in the city a better understanding of who we are and what we do, we invited the public and local media to come and see our projects first hand. We want to demonstrate that we are a transparent and open organisation with nothing to hide, since nonprofit operations are often met with much suspicion.


The Open House event gave people the opportunity to see the warehouse where humanitarian aid is sorted and stored, observe our Community Care team in action doing activities with disadvantaged children, take part in English conversation practice, go through the AIDS Xperience simulation, or just enjoy a quiet drink in the café.


Feedback from the event was very positive, and we were featured on local news with a remarkably accurate report of the day. We have also been seeing longer term benefits, with larger numbers of students attending our Conversation Clubs and Friday night events, and the new semester of English courses setting a new record with a total of 335 registered students! That’s certainly a good way to open.
This month, our featured number is:



Find out why below in Village by Numbers.

Village People
 
 
Name: Angela

From: Shymkent

Time on the team: 8 years in November

Role: Administrator for Education and Cafe

Interesting Fact: She likes to read novels, especially the classics; Charles Dickens is her favorite author.
 

Village by

Numbers



The number of students who registered for English Courses this Semester. That is an all time record!
Making a Difference: One Smile at a Time
 
In March this year our Community Care team began regular visits to an orphanage for disabled children in our city. We have worked with them in different ways for the past few years, but when we asked the administrators of the orphanage what they needed most, we heard an answer we weren’t expecting and at the time weren’t prepared to meet. The administrators said that the children had plenty of toys and clothes and very nice facilities, but what they really needed, what these children longed for, was attention and love. Just like any other child, or any person for that matter, what they most needed was love.
 
We are now much more equipped to at least make an effort to meet this need with our monthly visits and our many student volunteers. After each visit the students leave with a sense that they are not the only ones giving; one of our student volunteers said of his first visit, “I gave him a smile, but in return I got so much more; I was filled with joy and satisfaction just being with these children.” He continues to visit the orphanage with us monthly. We are excited by this potential for double impact -- bringing joy to the children while helping the students see practical ways that they can bring positive change in their own community. It opens their eyes to the fact that they don’t need hundreds of dollars to give in order to make a difference in this world. They give smiles to these children and that is priceless.
 
The Salem Social Village in Shymkent, Kazakhstan is run by Salem Union, a local non-profit non-religious charity organisation which works to care for the needy and influence a generation of future leaders

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