Summer 2011 - Day one

The school seems to be more and more beautiful! We found the wall immediately on the right as you enter the school all painted with the remaining paint that we bought last time. They even selected a section of wall and made a picture of the Araliya flower for us with 'Araliya Ed Foundation' emblazoned down the side. We also happily found that many of their previous requests were granted either by the government or NGOs. Since last summer, they received:

1. a playground from UNESCO
2. some equipment to start a science lab which they have yet to set up but will as soon as they receive everything and hook up to a water supply.
3. greenery around the grounds
4. more computers (with tables and computer chairs) for their IT room, although this room is still not being used

They made some of their own changes as well:
1. Principal's office was moved to what used to be the English Unit.
2. They created a classroom out of the World Food Programme room

The theme of this trip is to explain the concept of sustainability and applying it to past and future projects

We started our time there with a small powerpoint presentation to the teachers of what we did to raise money this year: Aerian's 120 kilometer bike race in South Africa and Alex's Cham's Got Talent and half marathon. They were quite impressed. They had not imagined that that is how we raise money. We showed them that we raised 150,000 rupees in total and that 80,000 rupees was spent on boy scout uniforms at the Principal's request. Then we asked teachers to make a list of items or projects they would like Araliya to pay for with the remaining 70,000 rupees left over. The result was very interesting! We are now going to prioritize the requests according to a selection criteria based on Araliya's and Al Ishraq's Vision and Mission Statements that we will show the teachers.

For this trip, we explained the concept of sustainability in our support of Al Ishraq. One step besides looking at the school's needs in a more structured manner, was to announce that we would not be teaching or organizing Sports Day. This year, we feel the school is fully equipped to organize Sports Day as they have the kit as well as ideas from previous years. We also feel that they have learned all they can from our teaching and modeling. It's time for them to show US now :) This announcement was met with disbelief and a few giggles. And every time they asked us about the details of Sports Day, we said that we didn't know anything about it and to speak to the person in charge (whom they selected). Before we left, they promised us a cricket match tomorrow. OK we said, with big smiles :)