Internship

Six intensive weeks full of experiences. Dorothea guided me as my godmother through SEKEM. During those six weeks I have been working on the following projects: Yallah English, Women’s circle, personal English conversations, theatre in the school and interviews with students of the theatre course. 

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After an internship in SEKEM, I am a lot of experiences and learning richer. This paper is about the activities I did and the lessons I learned. I would like to thank everyone of SEKEM who made this internship possible.

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Yallah English

Yallah English, Every
Sunday 10.30 -11.20
Monday 9.30 - 10.20
Wednesday 13.30 - 14.30

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The idea of Yallah English is creating a relaxed space

where students can feel comfortable while practicing

English. No English grammar lessons, but simply

practising how to speak together.

Having fun and learning at the same time.

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Yallah English was an amazing experience. From the beginning on we

had a lot of participants. All the students enjoyed it and developed a lot.

We started the Yallah English sessions always with a little game to break the ice. After that we did an introduction round and then we broke up into smaller groups to discuss certain topics or questions. All of this was in English. Of course this was scary for the students, but because it was also fun they took the risk.
We created a Facebook page, which has now 100 likes, to keep the students up to date and to motivate them.

We also introduced five principles.

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5 principles of Yallah English
 

1. No judgments

No matter what you say and how you say it, we won’t judge.

2. All Equal

No matter your background, your gender, your skin colour, the amount of money you have, we are all equal. And we will treat each other like that.

3. Place to learn 

This is a place to learn. For all of us. No matter what kind of roll you have, hosting or participating. Everyone is learning and we respect that.

4. Make mistakes

The idea of Yallah English is creating a relaxed space where students can feel comfortable while practicing English. No English grammar lessons, but simply practising how to speak together. Having fun and learning at the same time.

By making mistakes you learn the most. Making a mistake means that you tried. And by trying you learn a lot. So let’s make mistakes together and learn!

5. Co-creation and feedback

Yallah English is a place of and for the students. A place we want to create together. Therefore we would like to have honest and open feedback. Not only the interns hosting, but also slowly hosting together. Eventually the students should take over.

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By involving the students in Yallah English they learn how to take initiative, how to host, how it is to stand in a similar position of a teacher and how it is to motivate students. This are according to me all important qualities to learn.

Yallah English was very important for me and I hope it will continue.

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Women’s circle

The Women’s circle was a very special experience. It was very beautiful to sit together and to talk with each other about the following main questions:  How is it to be a woman? 

It was so beautiful to see young women opening up and feeling able to speak. The feedback was very positive and a lot of women felt really empowered and inspired, including myself. It was very special to hear about “How it is to be a women” in such a different culture then I am used to.

One of the struggles we had was the attendance. Because it takes time to host a good Women’s circle, the Women’s circle was around one and a half, up to two hours. A lot of students are very busy and couldn’t miss a lot of time. So the amount of participants was not always a lot. Also finding a good time that is fitting in a lot of schedules was very difficult.

Mostly we started the Women’s circle with shortly dancing together, doing a massage, then a short introduction and explaining the principles. After this we started with a certain theme. This could be about the expectations around women or certain experiences. In the end we did a closer.

The principles are the following:

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5 principles of the Women’s circle
 

1. No judgments

No matter what you say and how you say it we won’t judge it.

2. All Equal

No matter your background, your gender, your skin color, if you cover your hair or not, the amount of money you have, we are all equal. And we will treat each other like that.

 3. STOP is STOP

We challenge you to come a little bit out of your comfort zone. Although we really wish you do this, we also want make sure that you respect your limits. If you feel uncomfortable with something please tell us. STOP is STOP. And you, me and us should listen to that.

4. Safe space

We really want to hold this space. That you feel able to share. Because of this we would like to introduce the following collective agreement: “Everything that is said in this space, will stay in this space”. We would really like to keep this agreement, so you never have to worry if other people outside of this room will know what you told. But we also realise that this agreement is sometimes difficult to keep. It could be that very strong experiences and/or opinions come up. This is important to discuss. Therefore all of us, the hosts, are hoping that you would come to us and discuss it with us. But we will keep it in this safe space.

5. Co-creation and feedback

The Women’s circle is a place of the students and a place we want to create together. Therefore we would like to have honest and open feedback and create the space together. Not only the interns hosting, but slowly hosting together and then that the students take over.

 

Because we had less Women’s circles than Yallah English meetings, the Co-creation still needs to be developed.

Also the Women’s circle was very important for me and I hope this will continue as well.

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Personal English conversations

With some students I had personal English conversations. Those students are planning to go on an internship in Austria. By talking with them we exchanged our culture. I got to know the Egyptian culture on a deeper and more personal level. I am very thankful for this.

 

Theatre at the School

On Saturday’s I attended the theatre classes with Dorothea at the school. Those lessons were for students from the seventh and eight grade. I read the script Cinderella with them. It was a very interesting experience to practice theatre and English with them. I enjoyed observing how the children interact with each other, what the norms and values are and what their theatre and English level is. I learned a lot.

 

Interviews with students about their development through theatre

I interviewed different students to talk about their developed through theatre and fine arts. This was very interesting because I am also a big fan of art. I developed myself a lot through art, especially theatre. It was amazing to hear a similar development from the students of the Heliopolis University. Although they grew up in a completely different environment with a different culture and religion, I could really connect with them. I am happy with this research and I hope to continue with it.

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The internship in SEKEM was an amazing experience. As said before, I learned a lot. I am grateful for this opportunity and I will never forget this experience. 

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