Interning at Chain

The school bell

The past three months I have had the wonderful experience of working at an amazing organization called Chain Foundation. CHAIN stands for Children Health Advocacy Initiative Network. It is a school and orphanage for both sighted and visually impaired children. They also have an Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) program that works within the community. They teach small groups of people a certain trade and together they make an income.

The Resource (Braille) Room

During my time at Chain I have worked with the visually impaired children in the primary school. At the beginning I was refreshed in braille and learned a bit more as well. Then I began teaching braille to the students. I absolutely loved using the gift God gave me to help and relate to these children. It was a great accomplishment when I graded some brailed class exercises by myself! Chain currently has two braille instructors who are both visually impaired. I loved getting to know both of them as well.

This semester has literally been the blind leading the blind. It’s been fun and quite comical at times! One day I was sitting with a blind student in class and reading the notes from the blackboard so the student could braille them. I’m not sure how everyone else in the class was reading the board, but from where I was sitting there was a huge glare. I was on the end of the bench and the student I was helping was seated to my right. There was another student to the right of the student I was helping. I decided to look over my student at the next student’s notes in order to read them. Eventually that student realized what I was doing and turned their notebook so I could see it better. It was pretty funny! And it happened more than once.

A Classroom (the desks are usually in rows)

I learned so much about social work, culture, and myself through this internship! My social work capstone and some other papers I wrote for class explain more about these lessons. They are a bit long to post, but if you are interested in reading some of them let me know! I would gladly email them to you!