We spoke to The Amos Youth Centre – a community-led, youth driven organization that runs a Learning and Leadership centre and caters to vulnerable children and youth through education, reproductive health, entrepreneurship, inclusive learning and leadership. They recently partnered with Play Action to deliver play-based training in Kafue, Zambia and talked to us about how their youth-led training is making a massive impact for children, young people and adults.
What do you do?
The centre is currently serving 700 girls, boys, young women and men who access all of the afterschool programmes, including quality academic tutoring, nutritious lunches, early childhood development, Special Education Programme, health and reproductive health programmes, menstrual health and hygienic products and leadership development.
Why you wanted the training
Amos Youth Centre has a Young Learners Programme that meets over 200 learners daily, these are students aged between 5 to 12 from 1st to 6th grade. AYC is currently working on formalizing a curriculum for the Young Learners Programme with a focus on play-based learning. Through an awarded grant from Global Fund for Children we were able to schedule a much needed training for our Young Learners teachers who attended a five day training in Play-based learning on creativity, working with children dealing with trauma, how to create low cost teaching aids etc. We believe the training has equipped our teachers and volunteers with necessary tools to create a fun learning environment that promotes Child Development.
How was the training for you?
The training provided a great opportunity for our teachers, coordinators and volunteers to tap into their creative traits to explore how they can plan and implement play into learning. All participants reported that the training was very helpful in further understanding how to work with children. Below are some quotes from the participants.
“The training was very helpful to me, I learnt more about working with children and understanding my work environment. I now more than ever realize the importance of incorporating play into learning and also how to become creative as a teacher or a facilitator. The training further gave me an opportunity to see how my work impacts children and how to effectively plan activities that are able to meet different needs of children”. Christine Mulenga, Programmes Coordinator Amos Youth Centre.”
“The Training was very valuable, Fun and educative! I feel much better prepared to assimilate play based activities in teaching and interacting with the learners. The training also helped me to realize the importance of being an observant teacher, community worker and facilitator as I work with Children with Special needs in my community. The training also provided me with great ideas on how to make teaching aids using locally and low cost based materials”. Febby Choombe, Director of Special Education Amos Youth Centre”
What you expect to do with these new skills?
The new skills acquired will be used to formalize a Play-based curriculum for our Young Learners Programme, tutoring sessions and extracurricular activities at Amos Youth Centre. Our coordinators and teachers say.
“The training has given me new skills as a teacher. I have always tried my best to make my lessons and sessions fun and interactive, I am so excited to have new skills that enable me to explore more ways to use play in teaching. I interact with Young Learners who tend to get bored very easily and the training gave me great ideas on making learning fun and educational. A skill I appreciate the most is how to work with children dealing with trauma. I believe this has prepared me to handle different cases I may encounter in the classroom.” Chanda Kashina, Young Learners Teacher Amos Youth Centre.“
“With the skills that I have learnt I will be able to incorporate play into learning, and plan different activities for the clubs that encourage more interaction and critical thinking. I will make sure that the activities accommodate every child that comes through and I will see to it that the centre is a safe and friendly place for every child”. Christine Mulenga, Programme Coordinator, Amos Youth Centre.”
“With the acquired new skills, I am excited and determined to use different methods of teaching in my sessions. Through the training with Play Action Internationals, I have acquired more tools on how to use play when teaching, create locally play based learning materials for the Centre and develop additional positive behaviours and skills so that I can become a better teacher, facilitator and community worker.” Kelvin Banda, Young Learners Teacher Amos Youth Centre.“
At Play Action International we love a partnership. We believe that by working together we can bring the power of play to more disadvantaged children. Find out more about our partnerships here. Discover more about the Amos Youth Centre here, and the African Education Programme page here.
