MOTHER'S
DAY
Malawi celebrated Mother's Day on Wednesday, 15th
October. A public holiday, a nice day to chill out with
friends and family. This mother's day was different from last year's, in area 3
hosting a Bray on our compound. This
year I decided to do something creative with the Saturday afterschool club in
area 11. As part of the teaching
taught and showed them how to be
creative, with art making their first ever card. A mother's day card for their
mothers. It was great fun they all loved the exercise and took it seriously,
even the pre-school infants.
There has been an enormous change in the attitude of the
children towards learning following
my long discussion, emphasising the importance of education to them, they
have changed and the change is evident. In their behaviour towards each and towards me. No longer have the attitude of
just turning up to eat and disappear. The children are on time for classes,
they set up, commencing with an 'ice-breaker' singing, helping the pre-school infants recite and learn their alphabets. The change attitude of these children has
greatly impressed me to want to do more
for them.
A few weeks back I
called for a meeting to meet some of the parents of the children, call
it parent teacher consultation. The
objective of the exercise to meet with the parents, discuss their child(ren)'s
progress. For the parents to also know me, who I am and what I am doing, very
important. It was also an opportunity for me to learn more about them, what, aspirations
they have for their children, if any. Again emphasising the importance of
education and asking the parents who turned up to do the best for their
child(ren) by encouraging them to
actively learn and become a better generation children, getting out of poverty.
Being passionate about children and family, I wrote an article on the importance
of education which pleased to say was published in the Malawian National
Newspaper, 'Nation on Sunday', in September.
The mother's day cards was a hit with winning cards
receiving monitory prizes. The cards were judge under three
categories; senior, primary and pre-school.
for first prize for the senior
children - MK 200.00; second place - MK 100.00 and third place MK50.00 Kwacha. Primary children ; MK 100.00, MK 50.00 and
MK 30.00. The pre-school children however, all received MK20 (Kwacha), for trying -
motivating them to work harder each time.
The parents I spoke to afterwards were very happy and
impressed by the creativity of their children. The next activity will be making
Christmas cards. Currently looking into sourcing reading books for the
children.
I have five star pupils which I plan to support with
education; two senior girls; three primary aged children - two girls and a boy.
I can say I am very proud of the children for what they have become and achieving,
also proud of what I have done with them too.
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| Preparation of class |
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| Children working together to produce the best Mother's Day cards |
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| Concentrating |
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| End result! |
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| Showing off their work of art |
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| A helping hand |
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| Our dog Brownie supervising the children. |
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| Displaying cards |
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| Displaying cards |
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| One of the winning cards - Star pupil (Shall be supporting her future education) |
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| Winning MK 200.Kwacha |
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| On Mother's Day, We are all winners |
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My star pupil with our pre-school infant.
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