by Sela Mao, Children’s Future Communications Associate
Channa is an independent living student at Children’s Future. He has been living in an apartment with one other teenage student since last summer. Before, Channa lived in the Children’s Future residential program. The house mothers were responsible for monitoring him with the other students and they managed the students’ daily lives, including their meals.
Now, Channa is enjoying more freedom, which is one of the benefits when living outside Children’s Future center. He is able to visit his family more often, and he also has more friends and networks with more people since he is outside of the center. He notices that he is more involved in the society so he knows more and knows how to solve his problems without guidance. Like other Independent Living students, Channa was given the chance to live in a group home because of his responsibility and desire to keep studying.
Some difficulties that Channa has while living outside of the center is that he does a lot of traveling around town to and from school and the village. Channa depends on his bike to get around since he live far from Children’s Future and his parents’ house, it takes him a long time to travel. Channa says that good thing about being independent is that he is happy to be a member of the society and live among people other than just students. He is very happy to know that he is able to live alone and he even though he is still in school and young he is happy with the way he manages his daily life. He is also checking to see what has to be done and what his tasks are everyday.
Channa says his life has changed a lot since living alone. When he lived in the center, he felt that he did the same things everyday. He could not always do what he wants to because there are rules and policies to be followed. Even though he has a lot of freedom outside of the Children’s Future center, Channa always thinks carefully about his decisions. He says he has matured and always thinks everything through before he makes a decision about how to spend his time or money. He also knows that he has to take full responsibility over his actions so he is careful in his choices.
Channa wants to become an English teacher when he is older and his favorite subject in school is Chemistry. After class, Channa enjoys playing instruments, socializing with friends, going over his lessons and of course sleeping. Channa would like to thank Children’s Future for helping him ever since he was young until now. He has had the opportunity to continue school and learn more. He is also happy that Children’s Future can help the children of the younger generation too that had no hope of attending good schools, being well-nourished or having nice clothes to wear. He is happy and grateful that Children’s Future is helping him and other children and he wishes everyone big success and that all their wishes will come true.
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