From around 3PM, the children start return from school. This is where the most challenging, but most rewarding part of our project all took place.
Many of the children come from broken homes and severely lacked the love, care and validation that they so deeply long for from an adult role-model. It was truly a privilege for us to fill that need for them.
While we were able to quickly earn their trust and respect, it was difficult to equally distribute "enough" of our attention to all of them. We quickly discovered how different their personalities temperaments, and needs were. The expressions through which each child received care and validation was as individual and unique as everything else about them.
For some, they just wanted to sit and talk to us. Knowing that someone was interested in listening to them and valued what they thought made their day.
For others, they didn't necessarily need interaction from us but were happy simply having our attention. They just wanted to know that someone was watching them. That is all it took for them to feel valued and cared about.
For many of them, particularly the younger ones, nothing excited them more than physical activity. Being able to run around, jump, get sweaty and share the enjoyment of it all was what put smiles on their faces.
Some even took kindly to physical displays of affection.
However, there was no doubt that all of them needed nurturing.
