Preschool visits older persons
Lots of children go to visit their grandparents at Christmas, but how many visit older persons they have never even met before to try and spread a little holiday cheer? Today News 5 was invited to join some of Santa’s littlest helpers on a very special field trip.
Patrick Jones, Reporting
The sound of music and youthful exuberance filled the Sister Cecilia Home for the Elderly on this Wednesday morning as children from the Fairyland Early Childhood Development Centre came a calling. Their gifts were not of the frankincense, myrrh, or gold variety, but supervisor of the old folks home, Rose Armstrong, welcomed the donations with open arms.
Rose Armstrong, Supervisor, Sister Cecilia Home
“We are subsidised by government, but Helpage is our umbrella organization and Helpage has to get their contribution from the public through donation. It’s very important because the things that they brought for us are not things that we can afford to buy over the counter. So when donations like this come in it’s a very big help for the institution.”
But the Sister Celia Home was not the only beneficiary of this gesture of gift giving. Head teacher at Fairyland Preschool, Jacqueline Gill, says the field visit gave her students an invaluable lesson.
Jacqueline Gill, Head Teacher
“Most of the children in Belize look forward to Christmas and Santa and receiving, so we also want to teach them that it is good to give. And a lot of the children at the centres, the parents are very young, the grandmothers are very young and they don’t have the interaction with older people in our society. So I decided to let this be one of the ways that they can meet the older people in the society and not forget them, and not be afraid of them, and to share with them. And also, the children understand that one day they will be old as well.”
While the youthful vigour and vitality of these boys and girls can be overwhelming all in one dose, Armstrong says visits like this are very helpful.
Rose Armstrong, Supervisor, Sister Cecilia Home
“It’s therapy for the older persons. And with the generation today you find that the young are not so interested in older persons. So getting them to be with the older persons from kindergarten is very important so that they can grow with that bond for older persons and you find that our older persons won’t suffer in the society if they are trained from youth.”
And one resident for whom the gifts will particularly be enjoyable is this former Sittee River villager, who celebrates an incredible milestone at the end of the month.
Rose Armstrong
“Yes, Miss Amanda Jones, her birthday will be the twenty-eighth of December and she will become a hundred and one years old. And she is quite agile yet, only thing she has a little problem with her hearing. But apart from that she is quite okay and she is keeping best of health.”
Armstrong says it’s the first public donation of an anticipated busy Christmas season. And while the lesson learnt today may take a few years to manifest itself, the staff, and parents of children attending Fairyland Preschool and Day Care Centre are confident that the exercise met its intended goal.
Jacqueline Gill
“One of our themes in the curriculum is harvest, which is done during the month of November, so we wanted to provide a real life experience for the children. We brought them here last year and it was on of my most touching teaching moments in all my teaching profession, and we decided to do it again this year. And since we ran into the beginning of December we decided to do a community outreach as well for the Christmas holiday. So we asked the families and friends of the children and myself to donate foodstuff, toiletries, and so forth and we made a presentation on that.”
Patrick Jones, for News 5.
The Fairyland Preschool, located on Lizarraga Avenue in Belize City, was established in 1996. It currently has a staff of three and caters for nineteen students ranging in age from a year and a half to seven years old.
