Life skills is a pressing human need whose importance arises in helping people with perception, communicating, evaluation, and adapting, it also helps them make decisions that serve them in their daily life.
What are life skills?
It is a set of human skills acquired through learning and direct experience to be used in handling the problems faced on a daily basis in life.
Skills are classified according to the social norms and expectations, and also to the personal traits of the learner; based on age, gender, previous experience, and level of perception.
Make sport a habit
After completing the life skills program with the volunteers in Al-Ojailat village in rural Swaida, 65 adolescents suggested an initiative motivating children to practice sport as a daily habit. And it included the rehabilitation of a playground, to make a more comfortable and enticing play area for them to exercise and have fun together.
Stages of the work
The adolescent coordinated the work in a way that enabled them to enhance their organization skills, and gave them an opportunity to show their talents and strengthen the bond and communication between them.
The stages are:
1. Cleaning the playground.
2. Preparing the painting equipment.
3. Painting the playground lines.
4. Painting the basketball hoop and installing the net on the backboard.
5. Preparing and inflating the balls.
By the division and organization of the roles and functions, the adolescents managed to accomplish their goal in a short time.
The imprint of the initiators
40 adolescents of Busan village launched an initiative that aimed to rehabilitate the school desks and increase their numbers.
This initiative established the idea of preserving and improving places in the minds of the adolescents, who used their manual skills, as well as the skills of creative thinking to implement it, that in turn strengthened the concept of voluntary work, and emphasized the importance of their participation in society.
The initiative included:
1. Classifying the desks into three categories: damaged-repairable-good, with cleaning the desks.
2. Dividing the work and responsibilities on groups.
3. Preparing the needed tools for each group ( wooden boards – screws – frame adjustment )
4. Cleaning the place after finishing the work.
Youth initiatives are one of the most important outcomes of Life Skills sessions provided by the community service teams, and the volunteers continuously work to promote it within intervention areas and encourage young people to take voluntary initiatives, supported by the Danish Red Cross.
