Heidi Malan

 Hey Everyone!!  This is Meagan blogging yet again about one of our fabulous team members going to Africa, Heidi Malan.  Heidi loves to run, read, hike and scrapbook.  She loves Cafe Rio and chocolate, and she has been to China and Mexico.  Heidi wants to go to Africa because she loves to be involved and thrives on new experiences.

Scott visited Heidi Malan’s service site this week which is the Box Elder Family Support Center.  The provide a Kid’s Care Center, Family Life Education, and Family Therapy for residents of Box Elder County.  Heidi is majoring in Social Work and heavily involved with the organization.  She volunteers several days each week and already has all of her service hours done for her Kenya trip.  Way to go Heidi!!!  On this night there was a parenting class being held for adults and we took the children into another room for a lesson and activities that Heidi has developed as part of her schoolwork.  The lesson was about feelings and emotions.  She had several activities where the kids could talk about what makes them feel happy as well as other emotions and helping them understand and learn new words about their feelings.  At the end they were able to look through several magazines and cut out faces of people who were showing different emotions.  They glued the faces onto cardboard and wrote which emotion they were showing in the picture.  We had a great evening with a fun group of kids.  Heidi also is available for the Crisis/Respite Nursery which is a service for parents to bring their children to the center when they need a brief period of rest and recovery.  She participates in educating parents in-home on skill building and family interactions.  She also gets to participate in counseling sessions with families as part of her developing her social work skills.

Never Have We Ever...Been To Peru!

PERU FEBRUARY RETREAT

Yep, it was finally the Peru team's turn for the retreat! This past weekend on the 4th and 5th, we had a overnight retreat at the Youthlinc office. I think we can all agree it was truly a blast!

The majority of the first hour or so was spent talking about the travel clinic for next March. We are all supposed to go to the University of Utah travel clinic on March 5th. A representative from the clinic came by to give us a heads up and remind us that we must fill out and send the pre -travel form by FEBRUARY 18th. Their goal is to help us all have a safe and enjoyable experience this summer, so lets all cooperate and make the travel clinic go smoothly. I hope I am not the only one who wants to avoid malaria.

So, once we concluded the instruction of how not to die while on our Youthlinc service trip, we got down to straight business. Our February meeting was designated for the revealing of each committees goals. Here are a few of the goals that the teams came up with.

Education:

1) Incorporate students funds of knowledge-or what they already know- to teach them new information and about their surrounding, environment and economy.

2) Encourage kinesthetic, visual and interactive learning and teaching. Use hands-on activities and demonstrate lessons.

3) Plan flexible lessons. Incorporate a variety of skill levels, ways of learning, teaching and be able to adapt lessons to change if needed.

Construction:

1)Pour concrete for a sports court

2) Provide a pair of shorts and t-shirt for every person in the village

3) Contribute to the Rotaract bridge project. The Rotary club is gathering the materials needed for the bridge-metal and wood. They will do a study on the river bed in April or May to find out where the best possible location for the bridge will be. Construction will begin to take place right before our team gets there, and we have the awesome opportunity in being apart of this phase!

Cross Cultural:

The activities they want to plan for the opening ceremonies are- western swing dancing, a patriotic song, and an activity with hand actions.

For the closing ceremonies they want to do a combined hip hop dance and have a talent show with individual talents.

The fun fair will be awesome as well! Activities include:

• fish pond
• volleyball soccer
• bean bag toss
• magic tricks
• twister
• face painting
• temporary tatoos
• nail painting
• jewelry booth
• arts and crafts
• sidewalk chalk
• big bubbles
• jump rope

Also, they want to make sure everyone on the team brings 10 small prizes/party favors!

Medical:

-To ask doctors and dentists for supplies to bring down!

-Research specific medical needs of the village and find those to get donated. They want to try and avoid bringing medical supplies that aren't exactly necessary.

-Teach medical lessons

Micro-enterprise:

-to learn about microenterprise so that we can teach the people in Peru about the program. they will be teaching them four lessons covering what a loan is, effective record keeping, paying money back, and about marketing and selling. Our immediate goals are to brainstorm fundraising ideas, and then plan/do them so that we will have money to loan to those with business ideas.

Each committee did an awesome job on presenting and coming up with goals for their team. I am thrilled to see how we apply these goals when we actually get to Peru. I hope more than anything that we go far and beyond what we originally decided.

Micro-enterprise

Construction

freddy (cross-cultural)

Medical

The rest of the night consisted of playing games and just enjoying each other's company! We played a game called "never have I ever," where we definitely discovered a lot about the weird things people do. I suppose we should play again after we come back from Peru, it seems the possibilities would be endless.

Food was partaken of, we laughed and joked around, and overall let loose. I have only grown more excited to go to a foreign country for 2 weeks with this group of roudy kids. I know we will have an amazing time.

February payments are due on the 25th of this month..so don't forget! We will see you at the March clinic! Happy valentines day :)

Kayleena Soren - Kenya Team

 

Hey everyone... this week I get to introduce you to the very sweet Kayleena Soren.  Kayleena loves being active, she plays the piano, sings, swims, camps, and loves ballet.  She has 8 siblings and loves all food including a love for ice cream with cookie dough or oreo cookies in it.  When Kayleena grows up she wants to work in the field of health, social work, or humanitarian work.  Kayleena wants to go to Kenya because it has been her goal since she was a little girl and she has a desire to serve people.

Scott visited Kayleena Soren’s service site this week which is the Childrens Service Society. This organization provides education and support for grandparents and others in kinship parenting roles to help non-traditional families be successful. Kayleena helps each week with the children who are being raised by their grandparents.  While the grandparents attend a class, Kayleena and others take the children and feed them dinner, this night we had pizza, play games and have other activities.  One of the fun things they do every week is called “Peaches and Pits”.  During this time each child gets to opportunity to tell the group what the best and worst thing was that happened to them during the week.  They also have a lesson that deals with different issues that these children face in their situations.  One of the things I was very impressed with was the honesty and direct approach they take with the children.  They discuss directly with them the situations at their homes with their parents that have led to themliving with their grandparents. Whether it be drugs or safety issues the openly discuss how their grandparents have come to their aid.  Kayleena has already built a great relationship with the kids at her service site and I can tell she is a valued volunteer.

 

Introducing Youthlinc's Friends and Family Trip Leader: Sarah Grant!!

It is our pleasure to introduce the 2011 Friends and Family Trip Leader, Sarah Grant! Sarah led her first international service project more than a decade ago and has been participating in local and international service most of her life. She has been on several Youthlinc trips as a volunteer, mentor and trip leader.

Her experience as a leader spans from years of leading wilderness trips, serving as a group facilitator, working as a team member and supervising others.In her professional life she has been an Occupational Therapist since 2005 and currently works for DDI Vantage, an early intervention program in Salt Lake City that provides developmental services to children age birth to three years of age.

During her time away from work and volunteerism she enjoys travel, outdoor activities, time with pets, friends and family and skating in roller derby. She is looking forward to meeting the group who will be traveling on this fun service and tourist trip to Peru in August 2011!


To join the Friends and Family Trip please fill out the following application and send in a $250 deposit by March 15, 2011: http://youthlinc.org/apply/friendsfamilytrip_application.pdf.

Applications can be mailed, faxed, emailed, or dropped off at the Youthlinc office:

114o East Brickyard Rd #76
fax: (801) 467-1982

To learn more visit our website: http://youthlinc.org/programs/fnf_trip.html

Meet Julia Wee - Youthlinc's New Local Service Director

Hi everyone! I am beyond excited to be the new Local Service Director for Youthlinc. I couldn’t be happier in this new position and I can’t wait to meet everyone and work with you through all of your local service and international experiences!


I want to give you a little background on my life, who I am, and where my personal joy in service started. I am the oldest of 6 children, born in southern California and raised in Sandy, Utah. The family has since moved to Minnesota so I guess I have a little Minnesotan in me too :) . I attended Juan Diego Catholic High School and I think that is where my love for service really began. My family had always participated in service projects while growing up but in high school were required to complete a set amount of service hours every semester, not unlike Youthlinc requires a certain amount of hours be completed by our students. My sophomore year I completed over 100 hours of service and had such a great time volunteering as a counselor at summer camp, working at the 2002 Olympics, and serving at the Utah Food Bank.


After high school I attended the University of Utah and graduated with a B.A. in International Studies and Sociology. During that time I worked at the Lied Boys and Girls Club of Greater Salt Lake which was an amazing experience. I completed my international internship with the International Refugee Committee in Salt Lake City and did my study abroad in Oviedo, Spain. I was involved with UNICEF RED, a campus initiative group and assisted in starting up the Student Orphan Aid Program. My sorority, Pi Beta Phi, also kept me involved in service through our national Links to Literacy project. All of these experiences sparked my interest in this link between local and international service. After graduation I started trying to find a way to incorporate all of these experience into the next step of my life which ended up leading me to Youthlinc.

I was introduced to Youthlinc by my sister Olivia who was a student on the 2009 Mexico team. She came home with some amazing stories and as she explained the program I couldn’t believe how well it matched everything that I always thought service could be. I knew I wanted my own Youthlinc experience so… I made it happen. I was a mentor on the 2010 Thailand team and headed up the Cultural Exchange Committee. That trip made a huge impact on my life. I fell in love with the Youthlinc program and had the most amazing time with the students on that trip. I was incredibly impressed by the passion and willingness to serve that came from everyone on that team. I am so lucky to be able to continue to work with Youthlinc and I am so thankful to have the opportunity to do what I love full time!



I am going to give this position as the Local Service Director my all and I will being trying my hardest to fill the big shoes that the wonderful Ellie Nazzal has left for me. Please know that I am here and willing to help with anything involved in your Youthlinc experience! I’m excited to meet everyone and really get going. Thank you for all of your patience and support!

Meetin', Dancin', a little Snoozin', & the YWCA

Hey Youth Linc-ers, this is Meagan blogging about the Kenya 2011 Team's AMAZING retreat we had January 21st - 22nd.  Since pictures are worth a thousand words, I think I will let them do most of the talking so enjoy!!!

 We all met up at the Youth Linc office for our sleepover and then dug into some good dinner and brain storming in our different groups for what we will be doing in Kenya.

We all got to each make a puzzle piece to add to the big puzzle that was worked on previous by refugees who have come to Utah, we added our puzzle pieces to there's to show how we all fit together.

Let the games begin!!!  Of course the Kenya team knows how to have a good time, we started out with a few races in our sleeping bags.....

ENDLESS board games.....

And the best of all DANCING......

I think we have some serious talent here......  especially with the guys.

So in the early hours of the morning the Kenya team decided to get some shut eye... even if it was for three or four hours.

Then we headed off to YWCA to help where needed with different cleaning jobs

Team Leader: Scott Bawden, serving the popcorn to families at the YWCA

Kenya's Retreat turned out to be SO SO SO much fun!!!  Everyone got to know each other, make new friends, and start planning more and more for Kenya.  It is just around the corner and we were so excited to grow closer together, serve and plan for the big adventure coming up in July..  Thanks for everyone's hard work.

Hardly A Meeting! Dance & Service rocks our Mexico team

Yummy food, ROCKIN dance moves, and more great friendships--last Friday and Saturday were full of it all! Mike and Angie Denison let us raid their house for a sleepover retreat on Friday and by the time we left on Saturday, we all felt like we were leaving our second home.

Thanks to all of the team for bringing the food, which was completely filling and very delicious! If nothing else, we found out that our team can make quite the meal! We got a little taste of the food we will be eating while in Bautista Grande, Mexico and that alone got some of us even more excited to go.

Although the food was great, it was hardly the highlight of the retreat. After putting hygiene kits together as a group, we played some more get to know you games that really had us laughing. All the games were a blast, but a huge thank you to the Nintendo Wii for coming out with Just Dance! Watching everybody rock out was awesome, but we did find out that two of our boy teammates are, by far, the best dancers in the group! I have a feeling they will have a lot of fun with the kids in Mexico that might show us some dances at the cultural exchange activities.

We also got to hear almost all the teammates name nearly everyone on the team! We all realize that now that we have those names in our minds, they will be there for a LONG time! In the morning, we got to put cards together for people who have been a help to our communities, and had fun putting our own little creative twists on things--even though we just had to laugh at ourselves if we couldn't tie a bow or if we "aged" something on the wrong side.

Something about laughing just brings a group together, and thank goodness for that! There were so many friendships made and strengthened that night, and above all, that made us the MOST excited for our trip! There's definitely something special about Team Mexico, and none of us can wait to bring it with us to the people of Chiapas.

Other meetings with Team Mexico have been fun, but the retreat was indeed the most exciting yet! We can't wait til our whole team can be together from all around Utah and even our Minnesota Teammates!

Go Team Mexico 2011!