July 7 - End of school year

Today was the last day of exams for the first school year of Ecole Nouvelle Zoranje. It’s a good time to summarize – but we have no time. Our summer activities are starting next week. There are no real structured activities for the village kids during the summer, so our school is becoming a center of activity during this period. Stay tuned for our summer reports….

School is Over!

June 20 – Theatre and Farewell

Pauline and Lena are two volunteers that have been accompanying the school since the beginning of the school year. Throughout the school year they worked in the classrooms to enhance French speaking capabilities, assisting the teachers and preparing many of the special activities and celebrations.

Before returning to France, they prepared and rehearsed a theatre piece with the children. Today the entire school gathered to watch “Les vieux doudoux” by Paul Madec presented by the school theatre group.

We then sadly said our goodbye to Lena and Pauline. We want to say thank you and wish them best of luck in their future. We hope to see them again!

Pauline

Lena

June 18-19 – Kindergarten Teacher Training

One of our main focus points is ongoing teacher training to enhance teacher capabilities and knowledge. This weekend Zoranje’s kindergarten teachers joined the rest of the Prodev kindergarten staff in a 2 day training and workshop which covered working with the children and creating and using teaching aids suitable for small kids.

June 13 – Kitchen and Drinking water

We have a kitchen inside the school! Since the beginning of the school year we have been addressing the challenges of cooking in a small warehouse away from the school and transporting water and food to and from the warehouse. Today was the first day of preparing the daily lunch in our new school kitchen which we cleaned up and painted last week. The kitchen building and joining water tower were donated by JDC and Latet.

The new kitchen building

Even more important – we finally have drinking water in the school! This is a rare occurrence in Haiti in which clean drinking water is still not available to a large part of the population. We have a new water filtration system which should provide the kitchen and all the children of the school with thirst quenching and clean drinking water. This is a good opportunity to thank Yele Haiti for providing us with drinking water until we were able to reach our water independence. 

Installing the water filtration system

May 17 – Flag Day

Self made flags

Flag day is a celebration of independence. On May 18 1803,  Dessalines the leader of the Haitian revolution created the first flag of the republic of Haiti by taking the white part out of the French tri-color.

School Parade

 The day is celebrated around the country with parades and some of our students spent several afternoons marching and preparing for the school ceremony.

Watching the parade

 

May 16 – Kindergarten Opening

The special event of the opening ceremony of the kindergarten section of the school became extra special with the participation of Haiti’s newly elected president Michel Martelly! The president’s participation enforces his commitment to better education in Haiti and we were very honored by the visit.

The President with kindergarten kids

The ribbon was cut by Happy Hearts founder and president Petra Nemcova, Prodev founders Maryse and Daniel Kedar and Mr. Martelly and the first lady. Prior to the ribbon cutting, the entire crowd of excited parents and special guests enjoyed singing and dancing performances prepared by the children of the kindergarten for the occasion..

The children prepared dances

Petra Nemcova, Happy Hearts president

The kindergarten playground is a great source of joy to the kindergarten children as well as the primary school students.

In the new playground

 

May 6 – Science Exhibition

We were honored to host 4 college students and their professor Mr. Mathon in a full week of science activities in Ecole Nouvelle Zoranje.

The team from Miami Dade Honors College spent time with the 4^th and 5^th grade classes doing various experiments around wind turbine, magnetism,  speed test, germ spreading and much more.

A selected team of students helped the Honors College team prepare the experiments and then showed them inside the classes.

The week grand finale included: a science fair in which Ecole Nouvell Zoranje students explained to their fellow students the various experiments and… a rocket launch!

Science Fair

The week’s activities were a great success and we would like to thank Mr. Mathon and the volunteers from The Honors College for a wonderful experience.

Rocket Launching, Haiti 2011