Welcome to Escuela

Welcome to Escuela
Being welcomed into a community makes any experience feel more comfortable and reassuring. From my short time volunteering at Escuela Vieau I can say that Escuela makes any person, no matter who they are, feel welcomed and part of the school. By taking pictures of places around the community and school that welcome people of all shapes and colors, I have put together an “essay” that shows this welcoming environment.
The camera acted as a tool to capture the atmosphere of school for me. I tried to capture moments and angles that accentuated my theme. By enhancing the details, I enhanced my overall message and theme of feeling welcomed by the city, to the front doors, all over the school, and additionally, in the classroom. My last picture I feel is the deepest in that it shows how the school is a community within itself and the children create the future of our society. The overall project focuses on welcoming outsiders into the community by capturing signs and places throughout the school that act as a sign of comfort. I chose, however, to not include any staff or children in my project because I wanted to show that even though I still feel welcome to be there, I still feel a little like an outsider at the same time. My pictures also mostly have a colored focal point where I want the audience to be drawn to and think about more. By focusing on the welcome signs in addition to highlighting aspects of pride in their diversity, I wanted to point out the details that might be missed but are important.
The communication between the staff and I may be weak but I have had some great conversations with the children so far. They not only talk to me and want to hear what I have to say, but when I get a chance to ask them questions, they aren’t afraid to answer me. I would have taken pictures of the all the children I help out with every week but it didn’t work out due to the restrictions made by the school. So far I have learned about the school and the activities they offer for the children. I believe that by keeping them in structured activities that they want to take part in, then that will help them make healthy decisions in everyday life. They have also been teaching me a little bit of Spanish so that I can communicate with them better. One of my favorite parts about the school is that everything in the classrooms is in English and Spanish. Even though it is frustrating for me when the children interchange from English to Spanish, I find it fascinating that they can do it. I feel like the children welcome and treat visitors and volunteers better than the staff does.
My goal for the last half of the semester is to get to know the staff better and communicate with them. I want to be able to communicate more with than staff by getting past just a formal greeting and move on to getting to know them on a first name basis and have actual conversations with them.