International Day of the African Child

This is a post woefully overdue, but absolutely necessary and, I think, deserving of its own entry. On 14th June, Nowak Primary School hosted a programme of events to mark International Day of the African Child, with Caitlin and I at the helm. International Day of the African Child is celebrated worldwide on 16^th June. It is, in part, to commemorate the thousands of protesting schoolchildren killed in Soweto on the same day in 1976; in the 21^st century, it serves to celebrate heritage and raise awareness regarding the challenges facing the children of Africa.

As has been variously mentioned in previous posts, Caitlin and I have set up contact with a school in Yorkshire as part of the school’s participation in the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms initiative. We have been exchanging letters and artwork, albeit at the will of Nampost’s inconsistency, but  working with staff at England Lane JIN School, we decided to organise parallel events of celebration in both schools on the same day.

Having spent a significant portion of my Sixth Year flying around school on an organisational rampage, I was met with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu – there were students to move, rehearsals to run, rooms to set up, programmes to distribute, and an entire school in a hall to watch an assembly for which I was to be MC. Those of you that know me, or indeed my dearest mother, well can appreciate that I almost enjoyed being back on familiar territory. Although perhaps I shouldn’t say that out loud, before anything else jumps on my to-do list for the last month...

Not to my credit, but to the credit of my students, the programme was a real success. We had songs from classes across the school, I had picked out a few students to help with my short speech, our choir did a fantastic job, and we also had a short play from one of our Arts classes. It should be said that this particular class are somewhat infamous at Nowak PS – the very mention of 7A is enough to strike fear, rage or even desperation into the hearts of most teachers here. Even I would have to say that, given their behaviour at times, this isn’t entirely unjustified. However, they are a class full of exceptionally capable performers and some great personalities; we took a risk and hoped that between their efforts and the old “it’ll be alright on the night” theory, something would work. It did, and volunteers and 7A pupils alike were beyond delighted with the results. Their ability to pull their socks up didn’t go unnoticed amongst the other staff either - another teacher commented on how good they were to their incredulous form teacher who missed the event. Brownie points won, methinks. As I said to close the ceremony, I may no longer be a child and I may not be African, but I felt privileged to have been involved in their celebration of their heritage and proud to call myself a volunteer in Tses.

Our off-centre, blury but very talented school choir

Careful, it almost looks like they're listening to me...

The four students who contributed to my speech, and one hiding behind his words.
We did give cameras to teachers, as we were busy on stage: all photographic evidence is varying degrees of blurry.

I think I should probably stop before this post gets too soppy and I am forced to admit that the end of our time at this crazy/stressful/all-engulfing/loveable/wonderful project is approaching at an uncomfortable pace. I notice I only managed one blog post last month before blinking and wondering where on earth all of June went! I am waiting for pictures of England Lane JIN's celebrations, and will update this post with a few snaps from them as soon as I can.  Things perhaps also worth mentioning from this last month include taking Afrikaans classes, giving computer classes to a colleague, two outdoor funeral services in one week, yet another beauty pageant (blog entry a work in progress!), a spelling bee and my attempts to become Nama for an upcoming wedding and culture weekend. More soon from one very, very busy but one very, very happy volunteer!