CCT Volunteer John Pooler Last Blog Post (Thai Freedom House)

Thai Freedom House

Jack Pooler

I am currently finishing up my last week here at Thai Freedom House, and it feels like I have just arrived. It has been difficult getting ready to leave, especially being here for only 6 weeks, it feels like I am leaving without doing all that I wanted to. With no classes currently being taught at Thai Freedom House, most of the work I have been doing in my time here will not be applied until the next session of classes starts well after I leave. At first, this was hard to come to terms with, because it feels unfulfilling in the current moment. But much of the work I have done in my time here is to make future volunteers jobs easier, and it is taking solace in the fact that my contributions here will have a lasting impact that has made coming to terms with leaving easier, even if I will not be here to see the results.

Not much has changed in the past couple weeks in terms of the work I have been doing. Assisting with curriculum building with the other volunteer remains the primary focus. With no classes currently being taught, it is pertinent that we direct as much of our attention to this as possible because when the school opens up, there will be significantly less time to do these kinds of things.  At this time we have almost finished up beginning and intermediate English curriculums for the upcoming semester, while also continuing to build on an English training manual for the workers in Free Bird Cafe. Even after I leave, I hope to be able to contribute a little bit to these projects when I have time, because it is an unfinished project and one of the few things I can assist with while back home.

Since it is my last week, I also completed my last English tutoring session with the Freebird staff on Monday. Since many of them can already communicate in English, we have been working on emphasizing pronunciation and expanding vocabulary. This past week, we also worked different customer scenarios and what kinds of difficult questions that might get asked about the cafe, the menu, or Thai Freedom House. Their tutoring will continue after I am gone because there are a couple other tutors as well. It is often difficult to see improvements in language over such a short period of time, but even in the 4 weeks of tutoring I was a part of I have seen progress in their understanding and confidence speaking the language.

I have enjoyed my time at Thai Freedom House immensely. The work that is done here is so often overlooked or not given the attention it deserves because it is not as large as other non-profits. But they serve their community extremely well and are dedicated to their cause. The lack of access the community we serve has to many institutions leaves them extremely disadvantaged in education, work, and plenty of other institutions. The work done here is is important to helping them succeed and providing them with opportunities that might not be available otherwise. Being a part of this community and the work that is done here has been an invaluable experience, and I am extremely grateful to have had this opportunity.

CCT Volunteer Jack Pooler 2nd Blog Post (Thai Freedom House)

Hi Everyone!

I am approximately 4 weeks into my internship at Thai Freedom House right now. Currently, there are no classes being taught as we just finished our most recent semester about a week and half ago. We held a “graduation” ceremony for all of the students on July 7th that wonderful. Almost all of Thai Freedom House’s volunteers, students, and employees were there. Every student received a certificate for each class that they took. We finished graduation with a large dinner provided by Free Bird Cafe!

Since then, we have been putting in a lot of work towards creating a more standard curriculum for the classes that we offer. Thai Freedom rotates through volunteers, teachers, and employees fairly regularly. With no classes being offered until September, now is the perfect time to catch up on the kind of infrastructure that will make transitioning new employees and teaching volunteers a lot more simple in the future. Right now that involves developing different leveled English curriculums since our students all come in with different levels of vocabulary and speaking proficiencies. Additionally, we have been working on training exercises and lesson plans for when new employees are hired at Free Bird Cafe. All of our current employees are from Shan state, and so we are working on them with their English as it pertains to their specific jobs in the Cafe, and we hope these exercises can be used for future employees as well. In the past, curriculums and training of employees has changed as people come and go, so we hope this will streamline things moving forward

I have also officially started my tutoring sessions with some of the Cafe’s employees. Most of them already have a solid foundation of English, so we have been working more on communication skills, pronunciation, and how to interact with customers since they work in the cafe. While it is still early in the tutoring process, I think it is going very well and I am excited to see the progress they have achieved by the end!

CCT Volunteer Jack Pooler (Thai Freedom House)

Hey Everyone!

I have been working at Thai Freedom House for almost two weeks now, and so far it has been really busy! The graduation ceremony for this past academic term is on Friday, and so there has been a lot of planning for that throughout the week. This past term we taught Shan, Burmese, English, and Thai, and I had the opportunity to be present for a couple of the English and Thai courses the last week or so. The students are mainly Burmese refugees or migrants and are from all ages. Almost every day, donations from places all over town come in and need to be sorted so they can be distributed to groups of indigenous people and refugee camps along the border, so a lot of time has been dedicated to that so far as well.

Outside of the day to day affairs, I have also been assigned to look into and develop possible fundraising opportunities that organizations such as Thai Freedom House are regularly supported by. So far research has included potential grant or other fundraising opportunities, which I will continue researching or possibly developing my own fundraising project throughout the summer

Lastly, many of the employees at Thai Freedom House or Free Bird Cafe are Burmese and are still learning English, and I will be tutoring some of them once a week while I am here.

It has been an amazing experience so far. There is always work to be done, and I am really looking forward to the new experiences and the rest of the summer here!