Help Young Children in Kindergarten!

Dear Supporter,

The fifty children aged between three to six years old have now completed their first year in the kindergartens in Bulqize that due to your generosity have been furnished with carpets and equipped with toys and didactic materials.  The two educators have been supported, guided and trained to provide inclusive and interactive learning for every child.  The children, their parents and their educators want to say a very big Thank You!

Before we supported the refurbishment of the Xhevdet Doda Advanced Elementary School, there was no kindergarten for these children as the only kindergarten in the city was overcrowded and could not even accommodate the children aged five to six years old in the year before they start elementary school.  As research shows that early education is so important and encourages lifelong learning missing these crucial years can have a lasting effect on the child and adult.

The Project Manager, Gonxhe has been regularly working with the two educators, Selvie and Drita so that they work in a more child centred manner and build the children’s individuality and abilities.  Kindergarten tends to be very restrictive and based on learning facts from the teacher rather than learning through experience and doing, so a lot of attention has been given to enabling and encouraging the children to do things with the toys and materials.  An example of old style approach is that the children must sit at tables, but the carpet in each kindergarten has promoted much more floor time and creating interactive play with the children using the space, the cars, bricks and their imagination.  This freedom to move and to create promotes the children’s gross motor skills, their socialisation and language acquisition as they figure out boundaries and the rules of their games.  Selvie and Drita are engaged with the children’s development and have seen that by giving more free time and guiding rather than prescribing exactly what the children need to do, that the children use their imagination and learning in many different ways. 

The children began their long summer holiday in early June.  Some will go to their first year in elementary school in September whereas many of the children will return to the welcoming and fun environment that you have helped to build.

Our project has fulfilled its aims to provide young children with an exciting and creative time in the kindergarten, where they can learn and develop through their own volition and begin their lifelong learning, so this will be our last report.

On behalf of everyone involved in this project a very big thank you for all your support and donations.  We could not have done it without you!