SOS village is a service that I have been a part of for three years (as you can see in the first photo above) , and I am currently participating in my fourth year of the Service. This year, I am a service leader which is a huge achievement for me because i care a lot about this service.  SOS Children’s Villages is an international non-governmental organization that provides care and support to children who don’t have the privilege of parental figures in their lives.  The aim of SOS village is to provide a family-like setting for child, and instead of just putting all the children in a home like normal orphanages, there are children who live in different houses, and each house has a “parental figure” who is basically their parent. SOS Village operates in over 130 countries worldwide, and every Thursday we meet with the children of SOS Village Piliyandala, Sri Lanka. If you want to learn more, here is a link to the SOS Piliyandala Website. Being a service leader this year is very important, especially since we have so many volunteers from our school.

This year, our plan is to do a style of language learning called TPR (Total physical response). We plan on using this during each session we have, and ending it with a pool session. But this year instead of just giving the kids free time in the pool, we are going to transfer the TPR learning that we used earlier in the session, and apply it to our pool time so that we are making more of an impact on the children. We plan on having a daily routine, so that each time the kids come they know what to expect and what we are doing for the day. This year, we are also assigning buddies for each SOS Child, in order to maximize the effect we have. With one-on-one time this year, we can cater to each child’s wants and needs, while also creating deeper meanings and connections.