MERCURY SERIES - MAKING A DIFFERENCE
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When Ivana Pejovska migrated to Australia from Macedonia with her family as a seven-year-old, she could not speak a word of English.
When she started school she found it almost impossibly difficult but with the help of others managed to make it through that awkward transition period.
These days Ms Pejovska, 21, works at The Greater Building Society in Shellharbour as a customer service officer but has never forgotten the help she received as a young child.
That gratitude and desire to do something for others in a similar situation has always remained close to heart.
She always believed there was something she could draw from her personal experience to help other young lives but didn't know what until she heard how the Greater Charitable Foundation had provided $515,000 to launch a KidzWish KidzSpeak speech therapy service in the Illawarra.
When management at The Greater told her employees could volunteer to help the program, Ms Pejovska realised it was the perfect opportunity for her to help give the gift of better speech and communication to a child.
So she did the training and discovered a real gift herself.
She initially used that to help preschoolers at Bellambi talk and communicate, until an opportunity presented itself close to her workplace, at Charlotte's Webb Child Care Centre in Mount Warrigal.
KidzSpeak speech therapist Jo Collier said Ms Pejovska immediately had a positive impact on the children. The way she had shared her gift was invaluable in the Illawarra, where it was difficult to get access to speech pathology services for children under school-age, Ms Collier said.
"Parents might not realise it is an issue but if we have services available within these preschools, then we can access those children and provide language-rich environments for them prior to school," she said.
"We can also give recommendations to the parents about some things they can do at home and some services they can seek.
"But for those children who never make it to those services, having programs in place at the preschool that specifically target language and speech helps those kids. We are seeing outcomes already with this program."
Ms Collier said volunteers were essential because it was hard for busy childcare minders to do it all themselves. She said she loved watching Ms Pejovska interact with the children.
"Ivana is very soft in her nature," she said.
"The children respond very well to that, particularly those who don't ordinarily speak very much. There are quite a few children who don't like to talk very much but I have noticed how they have been talking to Ivana."
Ms Pejovska is passionate about what she does and still vividly recalls how hard it was for her when she started year 1.
"I did not have any English," she said. "It was very scary but the school facilitated a few things for me. They got a few Macedonian kids who could speak it and translate things for me. And I would spend a couple of hours at a time with a teacher specifically on language. By year 2, I could speak English but was still learning how to write it properly. The silent letters were a bit hard for me to understand."
Ms Pejovska recognised some familiar games and techniques when she did her training.
"Once I went into the workshop I thought this is exactly what I have done before," she said.
"It felt good to say I have come from that and now I am helping other children."
She also realised it was not the first time she had used such techniques to help another young person.
More than a decade ago she made sure her younger sister, Tereza, did not have to experience the same difficulties when she started school.
"I have always loved kids and I guess this desire goes back to when I would come home after learning something new and telling my little sister about it and teaching her," she said.
"By the time Tereza got to kindergarten she already knew the English language and she already knew how to spell."
That desire to help other children in a similar situation never left Ms Pejovska. She recalled how quickly the penny dropped when she found out about the KidzSpeak service.
"I was reading about it on our internal emails and I thought 'that is really good'," she said. "Then I went to the KidzWish Ball and I got quite emotional. I thought I definitely want to draw from my own personal experience and keep giving something back."
Ms Pejovska said the emphasis was always on fun whenever she visited Mount Warrigal and arrived to smiling faces from children happy to see her. "We then play a few word games," she said.
"I just get them to talk and construct sentences properly and use the right wording. You can definitely see the difference from when they first walk in to the group and are not very talkative. But then they come out and start naming things and saying a lot more. It is so good seeing them develop and putting sentences together correctly."
Ms Pejovska said watching young children open up more with other children and adults was the most rewarding thing for her and made her want to look for more opportunities. "I love coming here. I can't wait to see them and to see what we can do together."
The KidzSpeak service is now in five preschools and there are plans to expand it to 10.
IN this blog entry on The Greater Building Society website Shellharbour branch customer service officer Ivana Pejovska explains in her words why she loves helping Illawarra children gain the gift of speech through the KidzWish KidzSpeak Speech Therapy Service:
"One beautiful little child started playing the jumping game with me. Pretty soon I had eight kids all jumping and having the time of their lives, with big grins plastered on their faces.
Towards the end of the session a little girl who hardly spoke said a few words and colours to me. I was at the Mt Warrigal Preschool for a second time when this happened.
The significance for me was that all the kids were all understanding me and following instructions, reinforcing the importance of speech and communication.
The other great thing about that day was that many of the kids had remembered me and greeted me with a big smile.
I am also learning so much about teaching kids and speech. It will be handy when I have kids of my own. If you get a chance to volunteer for an organisation like KidzWish my advice is take it. You will have some fun but it will also be very rewarding."