Jotrina Vamboi | CIIP 2023 Blog Portfolio

Posted: July 5, 2023

Orientation Week

I am so grateful for orientation week! Though some days felt like they were 20 hours long, I really appreciate all the guest speakers that came and spoke to us! I found the Momcares speaker to be very influential to me, and I like how she was able to speak freely on issue pertaining to Baltimore. I also never knew about the grants that could be provided by Fast Forward U to create your own nonprofit, and I really hope to use these resources given to us students. I also really like the dynamic my group has going on, we call ourselves Fatima’s Fabulous Friends. I knew some of them prior to CIIP, but never was really acquainted with them, so I’m so grateful for CIIP and the group that I was put in, because they’re all awesome and amazing people!

I found the Scavenger Hunt to be something I really enjoyed, not only was it a break from guest speakers, but it really familiarized me with public transportation here. Like many other students here, I never knew that Baltimore had a subway here, and I considered myself pretty aquatinted with the transport options here. It was cool to be able to ride this to Lexington Market, and eat some amazing food and boba at this market, from many locally owned businesses. I also loved being able to see Graffiti Alley, which had beautiful art, and I will definitely be going back there soon!

All in all, I’m so excited for what CIIP has to offer me and what I can give back to the Baltimore community, hearing from alumni how this program still impacts their daily careers make me excited and I can’t wait to start tomorrow at Village Learning Place!

Week 1

This week at Village Learning Place was pretty cool, I got to meet some more of the staff and learn about the different grades they teach. The LINK summer program itself doesn’t start until July 5th, so this week was pretty slow, but I was able to help create several google sheets for my boss, Annie, and these are important for organization and just quick access to emergency contacts. I was able to learn that many of the students participating in this program come from single parent households, and this can help me understand the students that I will be working with a bit more. I also learned that we have a Summer Leaders program which is for 7th-12th graders from allover Baltimore City and County, and it’s cool to see high schoolers wanting to be a part of a summer program, as I never had the opportunity to in high school. I learned that running a non profit isn’t as easy as it may seem, as there are tons of papers to write for needed grants, many rules and regulations to follow, and much more. I was glad to be an asset to Annie in any way possible! She is such a genuine and sweet person, and I’m excited to see how our relationship grows over this summer! I’ve only been at VLP for a week and I love the environment already! I was given my own desk with 2 computers as well and I get an email and a set of keys on Tuesday, I feel so official lol. I just can’t wait until the kids come in on the 5th and I can’t wait to aid them in anyways they may need. I was also tasked with watching several webinars that had to do with working with kids mainly in the Baltimore area, and the different backgrounds they may be coming from, and I feel like I learned a lot from this and now have a new mindset when it comes to my approach to working with these kids.

Week 2

This week was the last week prior to our training week next week! I’m so excited to finally start the training, as that means we’re just a week away from July 5th, which is when the summer program starts. This week we were doing a lot of classroom redecoration and reorganization, because a lot of the kids that are coming from the summer program were in the after school program, so many of the teachers there wanted to give them a new environment/setting to be in. This summer I will be a classroom assistant for Mr. Daniel, who teaches 5th and 6th graders. When I first heard my placement I was a bit scared as I know that 10-11 year olds can be very feisty, having a 10 years old sister myself. I eventually got over this little fear and am now so excited to meet them! I was able to sit in on one of the orientations with the parents, and hearing about how one of the students in our class already owns and operates a business is so amazing and has me so thrilled to meet her! I can really learn a lot from these kids, just as they can from me, and this has be so ready to begin our 6 week journey together! In our summer camp, every Friday is a field trip and this first one is to An Adventure Park, which is such a great break for the kids!

Throughout this week, I also am continuously learning how much work it takes to run a nonprofit and also how specific everything must be. These teachers must be so specific about everything, especially about the food they give out and tracking it, for their partners or else their partnership could be cancelled, which is a definite issue. So I’ve been learning how to report the meals that will be given to the children.

A challenge I may face is having to wake up earlier now, as I have to start going in at 9am vs 10am, and that one hour difference means a lot haha! I plan on sleeping earlier and completely prepping my meals in order to face this difference. Overall I’m excited and can’t wait to start training!

Week 3

This week has been orientation week at CIIP, the kids come in to start their summer program on Wednesday, July 5th, and I’m so excited to meet them. This weeks orientation consisted of an improv team building module, learning about how grief in children works, learning about the backgrounds these kids are coming from, how we can encourage growth in them, and many more informative and fun sessions. As stated previously, I will be working with Mr. Daniel who is the 5th and 6th grade teacher, and he has me in for an excited summer. He encouraged me to find something to demonstrate or teach these kids, as there are many blocks in their days that allow me for this, so I have been thinking about that for a while. Maybe I’ll lead an exercise block, or I could show them something about my home countries of Sierra Leone or Liberia, such as food to make! I really am grateful to have this opportunity and I hope to show these kids something that will peak their interest and encourage them to do more research on their own time! I’m very glad to be working as a classroom assistant with Mr. Daniel, he’s a very interesting and wise man, and I know that I can learn a lot from him! He is a pianist, sells vegan Ethiopian food at the Farmers Market, and is an occasional artist, such an interesting person! My main goal this summer is to build actual relationships with these kids and to let them know that I/someone genuinely cares about their well being! I plan on doing this by introducing myself, helping them in anyways possible, playing with them at recess, and more.

Week 4

This week was amazing!!!!!!!! This was the first official week of the summer program and I love everything about it! The majority of the kids at first were of course reserved, but they really did warm up by the end of the first day and I’m so glad this happened, as I expected it would take the first week at least. We really emphasizing using virtuous language at VLP, so I’ve been very cautious with my word choice around the kids, and my speech awareness has really been impacting my personal life, as I’ve noticed myself using virtues around my friends and family! There is a construction kit called Infento that the kids and I are using to building a Motor controlled scooter, and the kids really love it and so do I. It reminds me of a robotics class I took in high school, and I like that I’m able to bond with the kids over it, like I did with my old classmates. People tend to overlook the intelligence of kids, but I’ve learned so much for them in this short week. I’ve learned much about different musical artist, languages, and much more from them! One of our students is even fluent in mandarin, which he’s been learning since he was in pre-k at school, and this is so inspiring. As stated before we to field trips on Fridays, and this one was to Adventure Park at Sandy Spring. I’ve never ziplined until then, and it was such a fun experience. I love how so many of the students already trust me and have told me stuff that they said they don’t feel like they can tell others. Some of these students lack attention from their guardians, so I try my best to show them that I really care for them and am here for them and I can tell that they can notice my efforts and I appreciate this.

Week 5

Last week I had the opportunity to go on a hiking field trip to Great Falls in Virginia, and I’ve been wanting to go for as long as I could remember, so I love his my chance to go was with VLP. I was so tried and worn out from the hike, so I really commend the kids for being troopers throughout the whole thing, after seeing and fighting off snakes, bees, lizards, and more. The beautiful view of the waterfalls and the river really made the trip and exceptional one and I will never forget this opportunity. I’ve learned so much throughout my internship so far, but something I will forever carry with me is the reconstructive relationship methods I use at my workplace and the importance of virtuous language once again. At VLP, we do not believe in punishments, so we do not take away recess from the kids if they do something wrong. This is important because growing up this has been the main method in schools to get students to “act right” but this method is so surface level, and it doesn’t stop the behavior from happening usually, instead we try to see why the kid is acting this way as it may be they’re hungry, going through something at home, or another scenario, where this bad behavior is just a response to the situation that they’re going through. I think this is so important because as educators and caregivers, we need to be giving these kids our all and we should try to genuinely understand them, and this deep dive is just one of the ways in which we can do that, rather than just automatically reprimanding their bad behavior without justification. I could use this is my personal life with people of all ages, not just children, as people are always going through something where they don’t deserve to be judged automatically.

Week 7

My placement does such an amazing job when it comes to intersectionality. Every weekday except for Fridays, which are field trip days, we have a few community partners come in every week as part of enrichments to our students. In the 5th/6th grade classroom, Art with A Heart comes in on Mondays and Wednesdays, and with them we do various art activities, such as name molds out of clay, painting on styrofoam in order to transfer it onto paper, use of gold foils, and much more. The kids really enjoy being able to express themselves through their art, as there is no incorrect way to do it. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have a music enrichment ( I unfortunately forgot the name of this community partner) and an MMA enrichment with Charmcity MMA. These are my personal favorite days because I love being able to help the students write their raps that are recorded, and it’s always fun to have random freestyle sessions with them as I’m always blown away each time by their on the spot lyricism. We love the MMA partners because of how genuinely nice and caring they are, and the kids are able to learn different moves and life skills from them. I’ve personally learned a few self defense skills that I will carry with me! There are many other partners we use such as Dance in Bmore and Wide Angle Youth Media to name a few, and I think in the future we could incorporate an agriculture community partner to emphasize the important of keeping your community clean, eating right, and teaching some gardening skills. Intersectionality is so important because it’s so important to know about other (non-profit) businesses in the area, as you guys all serve the same community. It also exposes those in the community to new resources, which is very important and beneficial.