In the spring of 2008, during her junior year of college, Erica chose to study abroad in a distinctive region of the world in hopes of gaining invaluable experiences and enhancing her personal perspective. She finally chose Cape Town, South Africa as her destination and boarded her flight with a great sense of optimism and the courage she would need to fly so far from home for such an extended period of time.  After volunteering throughout her life at home in the United States, as well as brief volunteering experiences in Morocco and Mexico, she knew that this would be something she wanted to pursue once in South Africa as well.

Once there, Erica chose to work at Baphumelele, a care center in an extremely poor black-only shantytown. This informal township, Khayelitsha, is comprised of around 3 million impoverished residents in an extremely condensed area due to Apartheid.  At the care center, there are typically 150 children residing there who have been removed from their homes by social workers or because they are orphans.  Volunteers are brought in to tutor and help care for these children.  Thus, Erica spent her Tuesdays and Thursdays playing with the children and teaching them different subjects for one hour each day.  This was meant to engage the children in an active and enjoyable way—to learn while supplementing what they were working on in school.  The group of volunteers was split in to groups of three people, assigned an age group of children which was usually about ten students, and told to create lessons for each day they would be there.

  The first few weeks proved to be extremely difficult for Erica, in terms of working with not only the children, but her other group members as well. While she had anticipated challenges with the students, she had not foreseen having such difficulty working with her group members. Even the organization through which they volunteered seemed to be quite disorganized in preparing them to teach these children, lacked adequate classroom materials, and consistently failed to transport them to the care center on time.

 In the face of all of these obstacles, Erica knew that she needed to persist through and find solutions.  To surpass her qualms, she used the inspiration of her ultimate goal of creating real relationships with each child by developing interesting and valuable lessons to help them greatly advance their knowledge.  The children tested her group day in and day out, deciding on certain days to not show up, not speak English, or sometimes by denying their very presence. Erica had even more difficulty working with her fellow group members.  One refused to take part in the preparation of lessons, while the other chose to create disengaging, non-participatory lesson plans entirely on her own, refusing input from others.

The children had so much energy and enthusiasm; Erica just needed to find a way to focus this towards their lessons. She soon began a reward system for the students, giving them stickers as a positive incentive to pay attention and complete their assignments.  She also encouraged her group members to implement more engaging activities, which would incorporate some of their students’ hobbies and interests.  Erica began setting up meeting times on campus in between their classes so that they could create lessons together and give one another helpful feedback. She also decided to have one group member, who did not want to create his own lessons, assist her in the implementation of her ideas by either adding something to the lesson or, at the very least, help gather the necessary materials.  Erica asked the other group member to shorten her lessons so that they would still have a good portion of time each class period for another more interactive lesson, which she could execute.  Suddenly, their students were eagerly learning about the solar system out on their “football” (soccer) field, kicking the planet earth around the sun with a soccer ball, learning about orbits, planets, and rotations.   Students even began staying after class to have Erica and her group members continue to help them with their reading skills and other activities.  The students were loving learning, respecting Erica and her other group members, and the group was finally working together.

 For their last class, Erica and a few others in the program decided to bring the students to them on the University of Cape Town campus for soccer games, face painting, and crafts as a reward for all of their hard work throughout the semester.  The children’s eyes lit up as they began playing soccer on a grass field for the first time in their lives.  They had made so much progress over the course of the past four months.  Hopefully, the lessons would help them in the future, allow them to excel in school, and give them confidence and hope for their futures.  As the buses arrived later that afternoon to bring them back to the care center, it was a tearful farewell.   The children would be meeting new volunteers in one month and most likely begin the entire process all over.  Yet, perhaps the children would now be more prepared for future lessons and have a greater respect for education and their instructors.

Overall, Erica felt the strength of her leadership and the achievement of effective changes to her group’s dynamic, led their students to proactively engage in their lessons.  The students were inspired to continue to grow and learn throughout the semester, while leaving an invaluable impact on her, as well.  Their unwavering hope and spirit, under such difficult circumstances, made Erica appreciate everything she has in her life.  It has become Erica's strong conviction to continue to work towards giving others the same opportunities she has been so fortunately afforded. Every individual should be given the same educational foundation, in order to help foster upward mobility in our future generations.  As  Erica moves towards graduation in May, she knows that she will continue to pursue working towards ensuring all students receive the education they deserve.  Whether in the US or abroad, it is so important to bestow upon all students the same opportunities and to continue to keep children motivated and hopeful towards the attainment of successful futures.