Concord brought stories from the world to Longnor Primary School

Last Wednesday, members of Outreach Society visited Longnor School, and shared their stories of their own cultural background with local children.

Longnor School is a local primary school 7 minutes away from Concord College. However, for the local children, the lives of Concord students may seem quite distant. Here, we have a very divergent culture. In this brief 1-hour visit, our 32 volunteers introduced to the children their unique cultures from different places of the world.

Each group of students took a small audience at a time, and conveyed three interactive talks to different groups. Students come up with important events or festivals in their own cultures. For example, Indonesia students introduced the Ramadan festival and stories of prophets in Muslim culture. The Eastern European group presented about the Orthodox version of Easter and enchanting legends associated with the festival of Iva Kupala. The Africa group spoke about the Nigerian festivals and the fairy tale of “how a tortoise mended its broken back”. It was amazing to hear so many different stories. Before my interview, I never knew most of the festivals myself. Neither did some of the speakers, before they started their research!

The talk was well prepared with pictures printed off to show the children how the event is often celebrated. “We will play a game with the children, and let them draw flowers,” said the Israel group. “We think the smaller children will enjoy the game, so we’re taking the reception class.”

For our volunteers, this was also a remarkable experience. To make a speech acceptable to a young audience wasn’t easy, but it was surely worth the effort. “After the trip, I feel as though we made an impact on the kids in such a positive way.” said Natalie, one of the African group members, “We simply made some new friends from a younger generation.”

Maeve Dai 6.2