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Child's Play

Teaching kids to care

By Elisabeth Amante Heys
For The Prague Post
March 14th, 2007 issue

Marika Reed, an altruistic-minded teenager, listed herself on a Czech Web site for volunteers, offering to sort donated clothes, work in a day-care center or even paint walls. There were no takers.  

“You’re the only one who called,” she told The Prague Post when asked how her listing fared.
Volunteer Resources

Make a Connection
Czech National Volunteer Center
www.hest.cz (224 872 076)
Provides youths (ages 16–24) with
monetary grants to create service projects
International Church of Prague
Peroutkova 57, Prague 5 (296 392 338)
Children can join a Sunday "puppet
ministry" or teach English to a sister congregation. Find out more at a special "Friendship Sunday" service, March 25 at 10:30 a.m.
International School of Prague
www.isp.cz (220 384 111)
Offers an international baccalaureate with a service curriculum and volunteer
opportunities for children in all grades
Volunteers for Peace
www.vfp.org (001-802-259-2759)
This U.S.-based organization will list 3,500 low-cost volunteer projects for teens and families on its Web site beginning March 21

Reed’s experience is sadly typical. Agencies here just don’t recruit young volunteers or make meaningful experiences available to them. Kids don’t offer the skill set nongovernmental organizations want most: They aren’t good on ladders, can’t drive and, most of all, don’t have large bank accounts at their disposal.
But attitudes may be changing. “There is a value in involving children in volunteerism, even when their skills are so limited,” says Jeremy McWilliams, youth pastor at the International Church of Prague. “The experience transforms their hearts.”
That transformation can be secular as well as spiritual. For students at the International School of Prague, welcoming children from Chechen refugee camps to their playground in Prague 6 helps them understand that people in need can look just like them.
Presenting children with meaningful volunteer opportunities is an essential part of human development, according to child psychologist Lenka Nováková. So, why not treat community service as we do math or language skills in school, she wonders. After all, empathy, like mastering a foreign language or excelling in physics, is a talent that can be cultivated.
“Awareness of others and awareness of your own abilities to help them is an emerging  skill,” Nováková says. “Children need the practical experience.”
Teachers, administrators and parents attending this coming weekend’s Central and Eastern European Schools Association conference in Prague will be hearing more on this subject from Ryan Hreljac, a Canadian youth just shy of 16. At the age of 6, Hreljac counted the steps to his school’s drinking fountain. There were 10. Then, he tried to count the number of steps in the 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) a typical Ugandan child walks to retrieve one bucket of bacteria-laced drinking water — and found he couldn’t.  
With childish naiveté, Hreljac decided to take on extra chores so he could help give African kids clean water. Flash-forward 10 years and that effort has blossomed into Ryan’s Well, a foundation that has raised over $1 million (21.5 million Kč) and built 266 wells in 12 countries.
When Hreljac addresses the conference (9:30 a.m. Friday at the Prague Hilton), he’ll remind the adult audience that children can and do make a difference.
Not everyone can start a foundation, but there are plenty of other ways to help encourage your budding philanthropist. Inexpensive family camps are springing up where children of all ages can learn to give right alongside their parents. One such outlet, Volunteers for Peace, offers thousands of volunteer camps, some for families with children as young as 6, many of which are in Europe.  
Kids with brainy ideas on how to meet a community need may be able to get their projects funded through Make a Connection, a program administered by the Czech National Volunteer Center. Currently in its third year of operation, the program provides grants to young adults who want to improve their neighborhoods — proving once again that charity really does begin at home.
Elisabeth Heys can be reached at features@praguepost.com

Elisabeth Amante Heys can be reached at tempo@praguepost.com


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