Hi all!

Thanks to everyone who has followed my journey thus far. Things have been moving super quickly so here’s a brief post to bring you up to speed:

I’m teaching English lessons! I started to volunteer at an education initiative for refugees right outside of the Moria camp called Stand By Me Lesvos, which was founded by local Greek citizens. Since native English speakers are in short supply, I’ll be teaching advanced conversational English twice a week. I will be creating the lesson plans, curriculum, etc. Very excited to start next week!

Also, at a community center located right outside the School of Peace I will start to teach (*surprise*) writing lessons! Specifically, the class is focused on journalism so that students can be empowered to tell their stories and those of their community, to a global audience. And of course, learning advanced English writing skills can take anyone super far, whether it’s applying to jobs, getting into schools, etc. For me, whether it’s slam poetry or this very blog, writing has always been how I expressed myself. I hope that by the end of my class, my students will be able to do the same:) Oh, and ideally if everything goes according to plan (which it almost certainly won’t), we hope to publish a journal with the students’ work by the end of the month. This is also an initiative led by myself and another volunteer, so we’re excited to design the program and get started!

And finally, the past two weeks of careful planning have paid off and our IsraAID team had our first art/play therapy sessions! Was it complete chaos? Of course it was. Did we have to change the entire carefully-planned-program at the last minute? Of course we did. More will come in a future post…