Annual Children’s Rally Returns to Belize City Civic Centre

The annual children’s rally returned to the Civic Centre this morning. Primary school children from schools in the Belize District converged there to show their love and respect for the country.  With national celebrations underway, the event was a fitting occasion to encourage patriotism and nationalism at a young age. The day started with a parade and progressed inside the civic with poetry, song and music all about the Jewel. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.

Duane Moody, Reporting

For the first time in almost a decade, the annual children’s rally—traditionally held as a part of the September Celebration activities—returned to the Civic Centre in Belize City. Thousands of primary school children from across Belize District converged at the facility for a two-hour event packed with entertainment in dance and music, acknowledging the importance of Belize’s independence.

Patrick Faber

Patrick Faber, Acting Prime Minister

“We’ve been displaced for a number of years now and it was very heart-warming to see the children today in the Civic Centre enjoying the wonderful facilities here and demonstrating their patriotism which is always very, very good for our country. We are also encouraging them to display their patriotism. If you can see they have their flags, there are some patriotic songs. We have local artists and Oscar B also wanted to do so much for the children and volunteered to come and perform for them. So it is a fun time celebrating and also trying to promote patriotism.”

In his presentation today, Acting Prime Minister Patrick Faber called on the students as well as parents and teachers in attendance to practice four character values in life.

Patrick Faber

“We will start on a campaign in our education system to promote character value education and the ones that we promoted today are for them to be respectful, for them to be kind, for them to be honest and for them to be patriotic. So those are the four that we shared with them today and I ask in our homes and in the wider community for us to embrace these character values so that they are able to practice them on a daily basis so that they can become better citizens of Belize.”

Duane Moody for News Five.