Making a difference for orphaned children

IIL Y5 students are on average 9 years old. They recently organized an event proving that there is no reason to wait to make the world a better place. A teaching assistant in IIL English Primary section, Charmaine Takyi answered a few questions about the action she led with the Year 5 pupils and staff: Linda Bisol, Katie Lapworth and Alex Hopgood.

What inspired you to organise the event? 

I heard about the orphan feeding programme last year and further to this my son did his IB project on avoiding waste as a means to saving and having more thus enabling us all to give/share more. He raised funds as part of making the children at IIL aware of the need to avoid wasting food, and fortunately, we were able to visit the feeding home for orphans in Vijayawada, South India and we saw the need that existed for ourselves.

Could you please explain the cause in detail? 

There are children in a community who have no parents or probably one parent but who effectively have inadequate family support due to poverty meaning that they have to find a way to obtain food to the detriment of their education. A lot of the time they go scavenging with adults for waste materials like plastic bottles in order to give them to a recycling company and earn some money. Therefore they miss the opportunity to go to school. The Feeding Home / Orphanage provides meals so that the children do not have to go out to work and this means they have the opportunity to get an education.

How did the Year 5 children conduct the event? Promotion, baking, selling etc? 

The children with support from their teachers, informed their parents about the event and encouraged them to bake cakes for the bake sale. They made their own posters and put them around the school. They also promoted their event during the KS1 and KS2 assembly. On the day of the bake sale, the children organised one of the year 5 classrooms by partially turning it into a bakery / pâtisserie. The children priced all the cakes themselves; one of the children devised a game during the event to raise additional funds. During the allotted time (break period) the children sold the cakes and collected the money from the sale which came to a total of 970 CHF!!

We are very grateful to all the parents and participants who spent their time supporting the children by baking cakes etc. and also to all the children who with the support of their parents patronised the event. Finally a BIG THANK YOU to the Year 5 Children for their infectious enthusiasm which made the event a success!

A message from India

Dear Teachers, Parents and Year 5 pupils,

I am writing to express sincere gratitude on behalf of the orphaned children we serve for the kind donation we received of 970 CHF (62918 INR)

We have been informed by Mrs Takyi of all the hard work that the children, the teachers and parents put into the Bake Sale to ensure that it would be a success.

We also express heartfelt thanks to all the other participants who either baked cakes for selling and also to all the children in the school and their parents who supported the event through their activities and purchases to raise these funds.

These funds certainly make a difference to orphaned children and we are indeed grateful for all your efforts to help us.

May God Bless you all.

Pastor Joyson

Contact

vpower[at]iil.ch