On 27 July- 1 August, one shift of "Algojimas" took place. "Algojimas" is the same organisation I wrote in a previous post, it organises camps for disabled children and their families. This time, I decided to participate in this camp by myself and see the inside of it. I really wanted to contact with the children directly. Camps organised by "Algojimas" occur every week all summer through.
During this shift, autistic children with their families participated. There were about 17 autistic children in the camp, and 14 volunteers. Through the five days of the camp, I had a lot of new experiences and impressions.
Each day, volunteers, as me, helped with food making and cleaning. Also, we communicated and befriended the children, organised various activities. There were two times in a day when volunteers were absolutely responsible for the children, as that time parents and the whole family had some activities or lectures. In total, it was about 5 hours of engagement with the children. And of course, each day, we had some free time to rest and interact with parents, families, kids, and volunteers.
Activities with children required the great bulk of effort and resulted in the biggest tiredness. Of course, it was also the most interesting part. Volunteers needed to befriend each child individually, since they all were very different. It took time to get to know child's needs and character. For this reason we had to talk to parents a lot so that we could understand their children better.
As the activities with each child were individual, so each volunteer had to use his/her own creativity to make up various occupations and to engage the child during the time. It was often hard, since autistic children get bored easily and do not like many activities. Sometimes it was really stressful, when a child didn't listen to you at all and just cried for his/her parents. Then, I had to cope with my emotions and just try some new things, try to talk the child into something.
Engaging with autistic children was also stressful because of the responsibility for them. Children's actions were hard to predict and sometimes were dangerous e.g. by water or on swings, so this often caused tension for me. Another challenge was weather, which was extremely hot and sunny. I was playing and running with children all day and it was really tiring, as a result, I was all wet by the end of the day.
In short, I am really happy for this experience which allowed me to interact with autistic children and get to know them, to understand their world. It was important for me because it made me realize and value my and my family's health, the things I have... Also, it diminished my opinions, fears and prejudices about disabled children and made me grasp that they are also only children. It felt really happy to make those children happy, to make them laugh and to ease the parents' burden at least a little.
