The preparations for the end of year celebration in our kindergarten and primary school started in mid-May. Together with the kindergarten caretakers and both primary school teachers we made plans and allocated different tasks among us. Every teacher had to prepare a program for the group they had been teaching. Every age group performed this year, from three year olds to nine year olds.
Primary school teachers, Michael and Abdoulrahman, took care of the music equipment; they rented the stage, tents, chairs and so on.
The program started with a prayer and a short speech of the school’s top student, Jainaba Touray. Then we danced, sang, played games, had a quiz and, finally, had a reward ceremony. N3 students (5 and 6 year olds) and N4 students (6 and 7 year olds) sang two Slovenian songs, taught by our hard-working volunteers. The youngest ones (3 and 4 year olds) sang a short English song that our volunteer Petra Novak had taught them.
The children from a nearby school were also invited to the celebration. They performed for us singing a song and playing a game. We will express our gratitude for their performance by taking them on a field trip together with those students who won the cleaning competition. They were thrilled about the reward.
All those children from N4 who are about to start primary school were awarded special certificates. Ten of them were given practical rewards (school supplies) for various achievements throughout the school year.
School supplies were also distributed among the best students in other groups. We will cover tuitions for the school year of 2014/15 for those students who won the quiz. The rest of them received practical rewards.
When the rewards were given out by Musa Faal, founder of charity organization Charity Pearl The Gambia, parents joined their children on stage. There are no words that can describe the joy, pride and satisfaction they felt. When the father of one of the students found out that he wouldn’t need to pay the boy’s tuition, he could barely hold back the tears.
At the end of the celebration a father of two of our children came to the stage and thanked us on behalf of all parents for all the work we’ve done in the kindergarten and in The Gambia. The entire community attended the end of the year celebration. By applauding and thanking us they filled us with energy, optimism and determination to keep up with our work and mission even more enthusiastically!
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