Community Helpers

As part of our theme "Me and my World" we have been learning about people that help us in our community. A community is a group of people living together in one place. We talked about the people who help us in the Bagamoyo community.

Michael the Bear helped us learn about community jobs.

 We have had fun dressing up our new classmate 'Michael the Bear' in all sorts of different uniforms. Michael was donated by some students from Lonestar College in Texas, who recently visited us.

These are some of the people that help us in our community:


Doctors
Doctors help us when we are sick. They work at the hospital. They give us injections. Sometimes they take some of our blood to check if we have malaria. Michael is wearing surgeon clothes. Surgeons are special types of doctors. They wear the mask so that they don't breath in bad diseases and get sick. They wear the special clothes to keep the blood off their body.

Doctor Michael

Builders
Builders help us by building things. Soon, we will have a new classroom. A builder will come to the school to build it for us. They have lots of tools they use to build. Sometimes, they wear special hats to protect their heads if something falls on them. We learnt that carpenters are people who make furniture. They are a bit like builders.

Builder Michael

Firefighters
Firefighters help us when there is a fire at our house or school or some other place. They come to where the fire is and they use a big hose to put out the fire. They wear special clothes so they don't get burnt. It is a very dangerous job. We have not seen firefighters in Bagamoyo but there are some in Dar es Salaam (the big city 2 hours drive away). Once in Bagamoyo when there was a fire near Salama's house, all the neighbours helped to put out the fire. They put buckets of water on the fire to stop it.

Fire fighter Michael

Police Officers
Police officers are very important in our community. They make sure people follow the rules of the community. If someone breaks the rules and maybe steals something then the police takes them to jail. They have to stay in jail for awhile so that they don't do the wrong thing again. Sometimes the police help if there are a lot of cars on the road. They direct the drivers so they don't crash. Police check people's documents and they sometimes check cars.

Police officer Michael

There are lots of other people that are important in our community. Pilots, plumbers, teachers, chefs, farmers and nurses all help us in different ways.

We have enjoyed changing Michael into new clothes every morning. We hope that we can find or make some more costumes for him to wear!

Questions
1. Who helps you in your community?
2. What do doctors do in your community? Why are doctors so important? What would happen if there were no doctors?
3. Jobs are very important. Why do you think people work?
4. Research one job (for example: chef, actor, pilot, fisherman), and write a paragraph about what that person does and why.