Children's day

“What is life without children like a world without sun, stars and moon.

They spread joy and happiness in every season”

 In general celebration stands for joy, and that is very true in every celebration 

as we experience it. We had a joyful celebration of children’s day at St. Francis 

School. Basically children are very happier and they make the others happy by 

their very presence and fun. We witnessed it at our school as we celebrated the 

children’s day with our lovely and cute children. They were all delightful in 

sharing their day of celebration with one another. This marked a great step in 

our service of education, as we realized the need for value education with fun 

and frolic. We had a number of activities that marked the day very special. 

Among them the fancy dress competition and dance competition stood brighter.
 

In the fancy dress competition the children took part very happily showing forth their lovely and angelic outfit. It was like stars in the sky, shining bright and light. They had wonderfully dressed themselves that we were at awe and wonder looking at their outfit and their style. A few even had unique style in their walk that mesmerised the audience. The radiant joy that shone in their face was pervading the hearts of their parents and teachers who were standing and watching their children walk all along the stage with pride.

Secondly dance competition rocked the day. The moves with their hip and the jump with their toes earned huge thunderous applause from the audience. Indeed it was a heart-delighting performance by the children. Every one of them, who had danced, had magically attracted the audience that most of them were watching the dance without even blinking their eyes. The dance was so amazing that even those who were not interested started enjoying looking at the hip hop steps of the children. The children had kept up their spirit of being joyful to the brim that it was overflowing with smile and happiness.

On the whole the programme was enriching and enlivening to both the children and the teacher-parents. As said in the beginning the children spread the aroma of joy and happiness around the school campus with their blissful and wholistic performances. We have a lot to learn from them in this regard. Let us grow together. Let be children for children’s sake.

                                                                               Sr.Jacquline

EDUCATIONAL EXPOSURE

Educational Exposure for O/L students from Karukupane

The exposure organised was timely as the students prepare themselves to sit for the O/L exams in the month of December 2018. The students went to Jaffna on 24^th and 25^th of October 2018. As the students approach exams the tension mounts and most of them without dealing with stress find a mechanism to escape. There were 18 students from both Karukupane Tamil and Sinhala schools.

Objective Observe, understand and learn the various skills needed to face the exams, Stress and anxiety management and the coping mechanism,Enhance the knowledge, skills and techniques needed in answering the exam papers , Learn new skills to support the efforts from the students who potentially would score the best results in Jaffna, Create an atmosphere in order to cultivate future programmes and reconciliation.

The program was designed in resonance with the objectives of the visit. During the 2day program, the participants have visited various historical places that they have studied about in their history lessons and the schools that are known for their excellence. The students also interacted with the students who would secure the best results in their respective schools and in the district. The first day the students were given an hour of talk on motivation and goal and value-oriented life by Fr. Dilan Perera a Jesuit. The rest of the day was spent on visiting the historical places students were amazed to find the historical evidence of the Fort in Jaffna the history of which spans a few centuries[1] and the Nalur temple. Before the students retired for the night evaluation for the day was organised in order to enhance the lessons learnt and to answer their queries. The second day was very significant, and all the students looked forward to it. It was organised that the female students would visit Holy Family Convent, Jaffna and the male students would visit St. Patrick’s College, Jaffna. Both the schools are well known for their excellence and performance in education in Jaffna district. The students were welcomed warmly and were introduced to objective of the day. The students followed different methods to get themselves engaged in learning from their colleagues how their counterparts in Jaffna learn and study efficiently thus preparing for the exam. They were impressed how the students are prepared to face the exam with confidence presuming that they would get the questions that they have prepared. The second half of the first session was to place the students in small groups in order to make the interaction lively.  Mr. Stanislaus who had been in teaching career for 32 years insisted that their study methodology should give them self-confidence to face the exam. He also insisted to invoke the blessing of the Lord before any activity that the students get engaged in especially the exams. They students were introduced to various techniques to write the exam expecting the results The students at the end of the programme felt amazing about the exposure they had and felt good about having invested time and energy. All the students expressed that it’s their first visit to Jaffna and meeting with the students have deconstructed the prejudice that they had. They also felt they were treated well by the students and these exposures could be of some help in building relationships across ethnicity. They also expressed the fear they had with regard to Tamil – Sinhala divide but at the end of the programme they genuinely spelled out that there was no language or ethnic difference expressed. Apart from the objectives of the exposure they students also articulated that these programmes or similar programmes can foster ethnic harmony and reconciliation.

Kottapitiya Community

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BEING TRANSFORMED FOR THE MISSION

Being transformed for the mission………..

Sr. Rahil and I joined the Sisters formation group for an exposure program as a part of the course.  With immense joy I would like to share our experience of the self-transformation in relation to tradition and experience. We visited a village from 27^th to 30^th of August, 2018.  It was held in a Rural Area of Mangeni, Batticoloa in Sri Lanka. Each day we had some programs like taking classes for the children, visiting the families, visiting the fishermen in the sea shore and conducting some entertainment programme for the children, and also awareness programs were conducted for the parents of the children, to encourage their children for the higher education as well as the human values.

In visiting the families we had a very good experience because they trusted us so much and were able to share openly their joys and sorrows with us. This sharing of the people and interacting with them we were able to feel that we are exposed to their family as one of the members and to the realities of the society.  It was like the ship goes in to the deep water and experience all kinds of roughness of the sea. They were very affected by various problems of natural and manmade calamities. In fact this experience gave us the beautiful opportunity to be one with them and to experience all kinds of roughness that they face in the deep sea of life.

We were surprised to see these people because despite of the other religions practiced, they welcomed us with lot of hospitality and love and they were very simple and very much approaching people.

So this exposure was a wonderful experience for both of us to become self-transformed persons for our missionary journey as we said in the beginning and we are grateful to God for the opportunity that he had granted to us.

By. Sr. Martina Marsilla Mary