Our Sites Closing Interview:

On Tuesday 19th, June we went for a final interview to the Vida Digna office. When we met we had an interview with one of the directors of Vida Digna. We discussed how we became aware of Vida Digna, Talked about how we could help, what we accomplished, and finally she told us how well we did in helping Vida Digna. She mentioned about publicity and money that they needed. She also said that we did well in getting the cement, helping them entertain the dogs and clean around the shelter where the dogs live. She showed obvious gratitude to what we had accomplished and she spoke about how meeting others who wanted to contribute so much was an inspiration to her to keep trying her best to assist these animals.

Personal Reflections

Elydah:

As part of Cofo group # 4 working to assist Vida Digna I found that I was able to learn from and experience many new issues and situations that I had never been presented with before. Before Cofo began I had been occupied with worrying about our grades and how I would accomplish a good score but working to help another cause like this organization changed my perspective on my goals. I found myself very dedicated to working with the dogs, giving them the attention they were lacking, and to doing anything in the power of the Cofo group to realize. Even so I still lacked experience in working in a group and organizing such a large project. I personally believe that I put a lot of effort into organizing all of our presentations, interviews, and meetings. I tried to constantly be on top on the things we needed to get done and the different points we needed to improve on but I know I could have done better. For one I wasn’t able to organize multiple times to set up a booth, which most likely would have been possible if I had focused more on the actual project instead of solely spending time at the site. I also had some issues with distributing the work lode and it took some time before I was confidant enough in my team members to expect them to do a good job in their work. With all the work that we have done as a group in creating an initiating our project I believe we have assisted Vida Digna greatly in many different areas. For one we were able to give attention to the dogs that rarely had people there to care for them individually. We also helped them with facilities, donating ten bags of cement, allowing them to build up new quarters that were sanitary in the quarantine area. Finally our largest contribution was community awareness. We were able to notify over a hundred people with our efforts. Teaching them about Vida Digna, its cause, and the issues it was facing. Hopefully our efforts will pay off and people will make decisions to help these animals in the future.

Vanessa:

When we started this project, I was very glad because we were able to work with dogs. And I love playing with animals and working with them. When we went to our site the first time, I was excited to meet dogs. Small dogs and big dogs were separated into different kennels; also they separated them into personality. After we met them, we started to get to know their personality and their names. We met dogs that would run away from us but then when they noticed we were coming back, they slowly approached to us, so we end up petting them. So they would know that we were nice, gently and caring. Now that we are done with this project, we will continue to visit them. I’m glad we spent some of our time to help animals that can’t talk for them selves.

Karen:

Our project went well but sometimes we had struggling with what we were going to do. We spent a lot of times at the site and helped people who work there, collected more then 100 soles at the booth, and we also passed out many flyers. Things that we could improve were making the booth at the school more than once and helping them to put cements.

Ellen:

Working in Vida Digna was pretty easy. Recycling garages, putting bottles into groups, and cleaning dogs were what I did in Vida Digna. Working with dogs and cleaning stuff was not hard, but I did have difficulties with working on the booth, which was selling stuff from Vida Digna (like T- shirts) and talking to people about adopting dogs in Vida Digna. It was hard for me because people did not like to buy things from us. Since the stuff that we are selling was usually the things that people doesn’t really need. The second problem that I was having is the language. I didn’t have any problem to pass out flyers, but to convince people. While I was trying to tell people about Vida Digna, I realized that not much people can speak English. However, I can’t speak Spanish. The language I can only speak is Korean and English. Since our group members were separated to pass out flyers and talk to people about Vida Digna, I alone couldn’t do any thing to convince people about adopting dogs from Vida Digna. So I had to say, “look” in Spanish, the only word that I know. However, still I could show people the pictures of dogs in Vida Digna, to make them interested in our project site. As a group work, I can tell that we did a lot of work. We went to many big places, where all the houses are- and pass out flyers. We sometimes, our group talk to people about Vida Digna. We also came to school to sell stuff from Vida Digna. For example, like collars, children book, T – shirts, book marks. We did raise money, early a hundred. Also a lot of people donated to our project site. With that money that we raised, we bought cement for Vida Digna. But one thing I am so unsatisfied, is that we couldn’t finish with cement activity on time. Actually we still didn’t finish with using cement. Our group don’t even know how to use cement. I am feeling so unsatisfied about it, because since the final presentation has over, and we still have work to do. Next time if a new project comes, I should try more hard to finish the project activity in time