Today students participating in a course called social work at the University of Belize traded in their books for paintbrushes, their pens for chisels, and left their classrooms for the Dorothy Menzies Child Care Center. They spent the entire day repainting and remodelling the playroom as part of world social work day – celebrated annually on March 16th. Now, social work is a thankless job, but we found out how these students have finessed some public relations into it..
Keith Swift Reporting,
We found the social work students hard at work inside the Dorothy Menzies Child Care Center.
Tylon Tillett, President – Social Work Students Assn.
“We’ve been here from about 8 o’clock this morning and this place has a lot of layers of paint, it’s been painting up for years I guess and we couldn’t put new paint on the old paint. We had to come and scrape it off and we have the participation of about 30 students now who came and helped us to peel off all the old paint and now we are in the process of putting on the new paint and actually fixing up the place.”
The students say they are giving the Child Care Center a much needed facelift.
Wendy Rosales, Vice President – Social Work Students Assn.
“We decided to come here because these people are in need and yes
people hear often that Dorothy Menzies gets help but when we came and saw here, they still really needed the help. So we decided to come and let the atmosphere be a little bit more child friendly and warm up the place and give them something that when they wake up in the morning there will be a smile on their face when they see the curtain with cartoons on it, something to bring joy to them.”
And for these students, it is all about service.
Wendy Rosales,
“For me when they come home and they see something new, I know they are going to smile. Even if they don’t say thank you or anything, just the expression on their face, and I know that when we leave from here, they will feel some kind of enjoyment and they will be so happy that someone did this for them. So it is just a smile.”
Tylon Tillett,
“We learn certain concepts in our classrooms, we learn social work values and one of the big values in social work is community service and we don’t only get to do the book learning at school, we actually do the hands on experience and see what our actual physical labour can do to impact their lives and make things better for these kids. So yes today it is not only theory, it is the physical application of what we do in our social work program.”
The students say that if they don’t finish this evening, they will return on Saturday to complete the project. The paint was donated by Benny’s.
