Lahiru Pre-school and the Children’s Goodness Club

The Children’s Goodness Clubs are a very important part of the activities carried out by the FoG as it gives kids from the surrounding villages to have an opportunity to improve their leadership skills, learn new talents and grow to be better people with good life values as well.

One thing we try to teach these kids is to be more aware of, and sensitive to, their community and environment. The children are taught to value the role nature plays and to appreciate its bounty by cultivating home gardens, the harvest from which they often donate to the elderly or impoverished families in their community.

Recently, the Children’s Goodness Clubs participated in the ‘Kolomba Yathra’ walk for climate change. Kolomba Yathra was organised in partnership between IUCN Sri Lanka and ECO-V who stated that “the main objective of this year’s Yathra was to raise awareness of climate change issues across the Colombo public, to engage religious and political leadership on climate change action, and most particularly to engage youth in modeling and action for eco-friendly, sustainable methods, climate change education and adaptation, mitigation and biodiversity restoration and conservation efforts.”

The CGC members travelled to Colombo to participate in this event and it was a wonderful experience for them to be a part of the walk.

In the latter part of the year, both the CGC and Lahiru Pre-school also had their annual concerts. For the CGC, their concert was a great way for the kids to display the various skills and talents, some which had been hidden for many years while others had been knowingly fostered and developed over the years. In contrast, the pre-school concert was all about the little kids discovering their own skills, or simply enjoying dressing up and having fun with their friends.

The pre-school kids deserved their little celebration after all their achievements this year, especially the results they received after sitting for an elocution exam where one child received a merit pass whilst everyone else received honours which is a great achievement indeed for these village kids, who come from families and backgrounds where the English language is not in common use.

Meanwhile, the Pre-school teachers also had the incredible opportunity to attend a special training camp at St. Bridget’s College, as organised by Ms. Malaika Gunawansa who has been working extensively with our pre-school teachers as a trainer over the past months.

And last, but certainly not least, the FoG elocution class students had a talent show during which there was dancing, singing, a drama and poetry recitals. We also had the incredible pleasure of welcoming our chief guest for the event, Ms. Quen Geuter who is an integral part of the FoG family, having been a beloved long term volunteer.

As the year draws to a close, we wish all of our talented kids nothing but the very best for 2016, and hope to see their skills and talents grow even more in the years to come.

17th December 2015