Bringing GLOW to the orphans

On October 8th and 9th, GLOW members had the fantastic opportunity of being a part of a camp for one of the largest orphanages in Moldova. A group of about 20 volunteers took part in the two day event in which groups of children from aged 6 to 18 broke off during the day for Arts & Crafts, Self Defense, English, Business and many other amazing topics. A couple of those topics were led by your very own GLOW volunteers!  On the first day we GLOW members gathered a gaggle of the orphanage's older girls, from ages 14 to 16 for an hour long seminar on Self Esteem. In all there were about 10, give or take a few, rather rambunctious girls. These girls come from very difficult familial backgrounds and often have behavioral as well as mental challenges. Despite their hardships, we made a great start to the day with discussing our ambitions and goals for the future, as well as the potential we all have to go after these dreams. We then completed a favorite GLOW activity, the Self Esteem Brochure. In this, each girl is given the freedom to get creative and given paper and markers to create a brochure about themselves. We describe both the physical and personal traits that we like about ourselves. We write down our greatest memory. We are also given the occasion to define things we can do to make others happy as well as the most important objectives we have in life.  I think the girls really enjoyed it; especially as we take the end of the session to each write a positive note on each other's brochures. At the end of our day with these girls, the brochures' back pages were filled with all sorts of confidence-boosting notes of assurance.  On the second day, we decided to forego the more serious topic of Human Trafficking that we had originally planned to go in a more artistic direction . . . friendship bracelets! The other group of GLOW volunteers and I got the girls outside and in a circle and handed out lots and lots of string. The girls each picked a parter and after we showed them what to do, they picked it up quickly and away they went. While most of our GLOW seminars consist of more serious topics than Arts & Crafts, at the moment we decided that it was better just to 'hang out' and get artsy. And the girls loved it! These girls had never been around Americans who could speak their own language. It was a brand new experience for them as well as for us Americans. One, in fact, that will forever stay with us. I think we showed these kids that it's okay to both learn and have fun. At the end of the day we were a little burnt out but it was truly a wonderful time that we treasure deeply. I only hope they will continue to ask us back again and again. Yay GLOW!