The Chagossians and SOS Children's Village

Estelle pulling a slightly funny/scary face

So, I'm now counting down my last few months in Mauritius! Eeeek! Recently I've been a bit crazy trying to organise myself and work for the remaining time! I've started teaching at the Chagossian Centre in Pointe aux Sables with Charlie. We share a class of 20 pupils of varying ages (11-19 years old). I like it a lot and it can be lots of fun but I've learnt the success of a lesson rests heavily on lesson preparation! It can be quite difficult to teach a class with such varying levels. Sometimes it feel so unfair on the older ones as we have to try and balance out the level of the work. It's often far too easy for them! But then again some of the work is far too difficult for some of younger ones! So Charlie and I are going to split up the class to try and combat this problem! Some of them have exams in a few weeks aswell so hopefully we're going to go to the Chagossian Centre more often to help them.
As well as all this I've started working at an SOS Children's Village in Beau Bassin. So, SOS Children's Village is quite a well known worldwide charity. I'll try and describe it! So basically it's like a village where there are several houses arranged around a courtyard. In the houses live several children who for whatever reason have been placed in the care of the village by the CDA (Child Development Agency). In the houses the children live with an SOS Mother (sort of an adopted Mother) and they basically live as close to a normal family life as possible. Which is really nice. You can totally see the benefits to them. A lot of the children are very close to their SOS Mother. So, at the moment I'm working with a Social Worker in the village. I'm helping to write Child Development Reports. I sit with the Social Worker, the SOS Mother and the Child and take notes while the Social Worker interviews them. It's very interesting and the experience will be very beneficial for my Child Nursing I think! As well as this, I play with the kids in the village and I'm going to start working at the Kindergarten they have! I went to the beach with them before the holidays and had lots of fun!
And I'm still working at Namaste also a couple of days a week. I'm really enjoying the varied work at the moment. Everyday is different and new and I love this! My gap year is just getting better and better!