DI life in Gånsager

But first you have to know more about the place and the school.

Day school Orion and carehome Cassini
The school and the carehome is in the same place. Always more than ten teenagers attend the Day school and almost all of them live in the carehome. There are different classes in the Day school: music class, nature and science class, art class, mathematics, danish and english classes. The different classes meet the different needs of our students. Some of them require very special attention the others just need a tutor to help them.
School and care home give a place for teenagers and provide an environment which is required due to mental and social development of the special kids. Lately three students moved to one of the carehome houses to learn to live more independant life and to prepare for their life in future. They share responsibilities in the house and ensure that dinner is made and the house is clean.

Day at school
After a breakfast everybody participates in morning assembly. Students and teachers sing together and have presentations about different topics. After morning assembly students have the classes or different activities, for instance they go to swimming-pool or horse riding. After the lunch they have classes until 3 o'clock.

After school
In the evening and on weekends students have a lot of interesting activities. They go to swimming-pool, to play bowling, they sing and dance, play active games and go to the seaside with blow carts or just for a walk. They make food, clean the care home, help in the garden. Students participate in a lot of activities outside the normal school day, like Olympic games, Summer theatre. The time they spend together with pedagogues and Dis sometimes is like combination of work and fun. That's how they can prepare for their life after they finish the school and that's how they can live colorful and interesting life.

DI life in Gånsager
The answer would be that DI in Gaansager is pretty busy all the time and DI has a lot of tasks. Because DI is welcome to participate in everything what is happening in the school and after the school. The work provides you with both practical and social experiences. These experiences help you to prepare for the project in Africa but not only that. You learn a lot. You work, do your studies, have courses and experiences. You become more flexible, hard working, open-minded, well-organized, physically fit, you gain a lot of knowledge and useful skills. At the same time you have a nice and fun time. That is why this program is quite appealing because it is not only work and it is not only entertainment.
During your time at school you participate in several highlights and common events, for example, New Years concert, trips with students, summer theatre, Olympic games, together with your team mates you participate in building and study weekends, satellite days.
From spring 2010 we started the big garden project and we are going to spend a lot of time with our “hands in the soil”. In a few years this garden should become the main supplier of healthy vegetables for the whole school. So we have to work a lot there but the students are always willing to help us and we together can learn more practical skills. Somehow this is similar to work that DI is going to do in Africa because in Denmark DIs help the students to learn practical skills and to gain knowledge about many things in life (e.g. about HIV and AIDS, safe sex, poverty, life in different countries and different cultures in the world). Therefore in the future they will be able and skilled enough to solve their problems and to live more normal life. This is the main goal for DI in Africa. We want to be able to contribute to people in developing countries as much as possible and we have a very good possibility to prepare for that in Gånsager school and care home in Denmark.