I Believe We Can Fly!

This week we have been joined in the center by Julian, who is here to run a recycled plastic kite making workshop with the children. It has been fantastic and the children have really engaged with it. It was very well planned and in depth, involving presentations and videos on the environment and recycling along with practical activities. This allowed the children to really connect with what they were doing and gave them a greater appreciation for the process.

It began with a village clean up, with the all children heading out and collecting up old plastic bags. There are hundreds of them here, so they had plenty to do. These were then washed and hung to dry in the sun. After this came bamboo collection, again done around the village, with the pieces being cut to the right size. The children then learned how to prepare the plastic and how to stick it together with an iron (so producing no extra waste). They were fascinated to learn the process. After this the kites were assembled and it was time to fly! It was beautiful to see.

It was a great project and really gave the children the chance to work together. We will definitely keep it up!

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Christmas and the New Year

Somehow Christmas snuck up on us again and it was time for our Christmas party. Thanks to some generous donations from many of you we were able to make sure it was a great one! So a big thank you to everyone who gave so generously.

The teachers had organised the day to include performances of songs and dances and lots of games to join in or watch. We also had food for everyone, fried rice and curry, lovingly cooked by some friends of the center. It seemed like the entire village had heard about the food as the volunteers ended up having to work very hard and gave out well over 200 plates of food!

The children also received some apples and soft drinks along with pencils and books for school, with some special prizes being given out to top students and performers. It was a lovely afternoon and the children really enjoyed themselves. It is so nice to be able to bring everyone together for one afternoon and celebrate our friendship.

After a short Christmas break it was back to work. We had the Regner family with us from Sweden. They had done a lot of fundraising through their martial arts center (Hjärups Budoklubb – Combat Jujutsu) and had arrived to pass it on. It was a wonderful surprise! We spent the money carrying out a mega food drop, supplying 25 families with rice, fish, oil, soy sauce and for a New Year treat some fruit. It was such a lovely thing to be able to do. Our food drop is so valuable to our poorest families, really alleviating the financial strain off them for the month, but due to our funding restrictions we are only able to include 3 or 4 families per month (done on rotation). To provide it so many people all at once was a fantastic way to begin the New Year!

The Regners also spent money buying many supplies for the center and spent a few days getting to know us all. It was a huge bonus for the center, really helping us out. A huge thank you to them and everyone in the Jujutsu center who donated!