A great opportunity
Students from more than 13 schools gathered at Olcott Maha Vidyalaya at the Galle Children’s Festival held recently. All the students who attended the festival were divided into several groups after the opening ceremony. The colourful dances and songs made us interested and aroused our curiosity to explore the festival. Serendipity Trust, Galle, did a great job in organising this festival.
Children at the festival. Pix courtesy www.facebook.com/GalleChildrens Festival
We had our own group leaders and were led by them. Our first workshop was drama and theatre. It was fun performing dramas and we got an idea about dramas. Holding hands and imitating gave us a great opportunity to learn techniques of acting and developing ways of communicating. After a break it was fabric painting. We were given different colours of fabric paint and some papers. We made designs from cut pieces of potatoes. We enjoyed making designs and patterns on bags which we could take home. It was the best.
I got the chance to be a journalist when I entered the third workshop in the schedule for our group. Information sheets were supplied giving us lots of information about the event and tips for news stories. It was a huge support for our writing and communication activity. I walked around every workshop and met different people from different countries involved in different tasks. Origami was one of the workshops I liked best. I saw small children having fun making creative things with paper. Everyone nearby was dancing to the beat of drums which came from the ‘Imagine A Day’ workshop.
The Galle Children’s Festival provides children with a great chance and opportunity to develop writing, communicating, reading skills and specially to develop their overall English knowledge. Every participant had a lot of opportunities to widen their English knowledge. Every workshop had an aim to benefit children’s futures. I wish the chief organisers, the Serendipity Trust (Guarantee) Ltd, the British Council and all the other sponsors all the best and hope every student in the Galle district may get a chance to participate in this event later in the year.
Chathurya Savanee T. Liyanage
Grade 9 D
Sacred Heart Convent, Galle