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What I am doing as Mentor

I have atended two session on last two saturday's so far. 1st session was about Getting to know each other – introduction & ice breakers. Grils are age 12-13 years old and they are studying in TCF's school n Pangali which is slum area in surroundings of Lahore. It takes me one and half an hour and makes me feel tired but when I see girls bright smillng faces waiting for me for a week, it gves me energy and I forgot every thing about long way to travel and wake up very early on weekend. In our group we are two mentors and six girls who are students of TCf. To be familiarize with each other we build a web of support.

We all sat in a circle. Give one girl a ball of yarn. That girl introduce herself and give basic details about her. We asked her to hold on to the end of yarn and throw the rest of the ball to another girl in the circle. The girl who catches the ball of yarn then did the same. They then threw it to another girl who repeats the exercise. The activity continued until a web is formed and then we mentors directed the discussion towards the importance of working together as a team. Threw the balloon into the web and encourage the group to move it around without letting it slip through the gaps. And ballon remain in air couple of minutes untill we did not let it slip out of the yarn.

Group decided name of "Barbie Doll Group" as an identification.

With help of mentors group come up with guidelines of conduct and come up with rules acceptable to all of them. We encourage students to have a record of their Rahbar experience and to give them an opportunity to express themselves. Through mentoring we encourage their good habits and discourage bad habits.

My second session was about Understanding individual’s past, present & future. We make them realized that despite ones background, one may find something in common with a person least expected. We discovered ther future aspirations and encourage them to write success journal as well.

RV Weekend

Wow, so now GX is officially all over...we had our RV weekend in Birmingham the weekend just gone...was interesting! It was great to see everyone again although Zaake, Mike and Laura couldn't make it. It was weird to be with the UK volunteers and not have our Pakistani family with us, too! On the Saturday night we had a halloween party, and I must say, I don't think we've ever looked so good! Haha.

We did sessions on how we've coped leaving the exchange, what we can do next, who we can get in touch with and we've started to plan events that we'll be doing now we're home. A few of us northeners have decided to have an entertainment night with music, comedy and general entertainment to raise awareness on the issue of problems facing asylum seekers and refugees within the UK (see, look what Cranhill has done to me!) in Manchester, hopefully around Valentines Day so we can have a lurveeee themed event! Anyone who wants to come would be most welcome, more details to follow no doubt.

As for me, I'm settling in pretty well to uni life, still loving it! I seem to be pretty busy all the time doing something or another, not always working! (Although I do seem to have a lot more work than a lot of people here...haha). I'm about halfway through my first semester, which is very odd, doesn't seem like I've been here long at all! But life's pretty good right now.

So I'm going to sign off just by saying that I'd kind of put GX thoughts into a little box in the back of my mind, and the RV weekend has definitely brought them all to the forefront again. And it made me realise how much I miss everyone and how much of an amazing and rewarding experience I had...so again, I'd like to thank EVERYONE from Team 85 and indeed the whole of GX for making it what it is. Love you all guys =]

Sabina xxx

LOOKING FORWARD

I am excited to share with every one that I am going to start volunteering at school on saturdays, starting from coming saturday. It's THE CITIZEN FOUNDATION's Rahbar Project. And my role will be like a MENTOR.

This Mentorship Program is aimed at the development of youth as individuals and as responsible members of the community in which they live.

'Rahbar' in the traditional concept means 'a person who enlightens, illumines, guides, paves the path of light for the duteous disciple leaving his lively foot prints on the sands of time'.

In line with this, the role of a mentor in Rahbar is to guide the mentee in his journey of self-discovery to help develop a sense of self, a vision for his/her future, the ability to develop and implement a plan to realize this vision and the capacity to deal with the occasional failure that he/she will inadvertently confront on this journey.

So nice of Raheel, that he told me about this interesting piece of work. Unfortunately it's only in Lahore & Karachi, so rest of our team fellows except me and Raheel amy not be able to join.

Looking forward to this volunteering.

I hope I will share my amazing eperiences working with children with you soon.

I wish Peace so that children can come to school.

A Note to Say Shukria/Thank You/Asantesana

I'm pleased to say thank you to all
contributors from Pakistan, UK & Krnya to provide us a good opportunity to learn, enjoy and experience new things, especially for all three host communities for making us feel like home.

I'm especially very grateful to all host homes because living with host homes was incredible worthwile experience and we take back useful and practical lessons.

Volunteer placements were remarkable source of encouragement, learning opportunities and good information sharing platforms.

I would like to mention about GX team 85, PSs, voluntarily kind and supportive Dr Azra, Mr Peter, Ms. Fatima & her husband, Mr. Shahrukh, Mr. Asim and donors for such kind, lovely, welcoming, supportive, and helpful approach.

I really miss every one and wish BEST OF LUCK to all.

My journey on GX

(Najeeba Syed)

I joined GX with a keen desire to learn cultural differences,know global issues and its mitigation strategies in global perspective. I really appreciate the designing of the program. Its beauty is in the form of engaging a volunteer in a very different way providing them the opportunity to live with a host home counterpart from a different background,religion and territory and working with a different counterpart,collecting and absorbing new knowledge from the national charities engaging great people and working for the welfare of their own community.

Working in a large group taught me to respect other's believes. GCD's helped me to deepen my knowledge learning on issues developing countries are facing together.

It was also very beneficial to enhance my presentation and facilitation skills,build confidence and the ability t work both as an individual and as part of the group.

Working on the CA D's enabled me to familiar myself and learn from people working in charitable organization throughout the Glasgow. I definitely fell that I have gained knowledge on different issues that effect the city.

The opportunity to work voluntary with other volunteers taught me different aspect of volunteering which I had never considered ,and has strengthened my commitment working in the voluntary sector.

Meeting members of Scottish parliament from the East End helped me to understand the local government structure and how do they address their issues. My work placement in Glasgow at east end provided me the opportunity to know more about the communities,their current issues and preferences while addressing these issues. I have discovered that many youth issues are shared between UK AND Pakistan. In my perspective the Glasgow community was more concerned about the issues faced by their youth and they were making more of an effort towards the resolution.

Many people showed interest and wanted to know about the causes and effects of issues faced by young people which are the same for youth of many other developing countries such as lack of opportunities in terms of lively hood,decision making ,exclusion which in tern can lead other problem such as a lack of practical based qualification schemes for young people which mean that it can be diffiicult to learn more trades,ergo difficulties to obtain a good wage.

The opportunity to participate in different social event in UK I.e Calidh,a trip to West End theater broaden my mind and gave me scope to experience new things of which had I had no chance. It also helped me to understand the social habits of the Glasgow community. Global Exchange has been a rich exposure which contributed lot in my life helping me to build up towards my life goals enhancing the spirit of volunteering to work for my community to engage young people in the such process where they can contribute for positive change.