Glimpse in the Sea: New school, new kids, new chances

By Lysanne Snijders

Last week we started at a new school again. This school is located more in the centre of Puerto Princesa. What means it is easier accessible for our Philippine volunteers, but quit a ride for me each morning. Naturally, as I am a Dutch girl, I eat sandwiches in the afternoon in stead of rice, preferably with cheese, and so I also cycle to work. But before I go to much into detail about my unwillingness to adjust to certain parts of the Philippine lifestyle, or actually, to give up some parts of my Dutch lifestyle, I will explain the specifics of our wonderful program to you first.

In total, we visit 5 schools with our program and in general the program for the 5^th and 6^th grades will last for 4 weeks. As there are usually 2 classes of grade 5 and 2 of grade 6 we work from Tuesday until Friday, so this means a class a day. We are now down to our 3^rd school: West Central Elementary School. It is located next to a beautiful blue cathedral and, as I empirically found out last week, the school is currently painting there building the same colour. So also the side of the stairs. My hands could blend in perfectly with its new surroundings for the remainder of Tuesday morning.

But, as I said, we just finished the first week. This means 4 half days of teaching the kids about the importance of mangroves, but of course not without playing a game with the same topic. We keep it fun as well as educational! The second week, this week, we start with the whole days in the program. Next days will be occupied with animals of the sea and coral reefs. Next to the lecture we have a sea animal quiz, a bingo and, as we also do not let them miss out on important educational movies, watching Finding Nemo.

Although watching the movie is very relaxing for the kids, I am all nerves. Children will be children and as I was reminded at the last school, it is very hard to temper their enthusiasm. While inside a small room with about 40 excited kids, a number of wires and some expensive and essential movie watching materials, things easily go wrong. Until now, the beamer has survived a metre long fall on the concrete floor and the sound boxes even still work after 3! This luck is however not something I would like to stretch.

The 3^rd and 4^th week will consist of excursions. One to Pandan island, where the children can see the corals and mangroves in real life and one to the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) where the can feed the giant groupers!

Although it takes some work and coordination to keep everything running (and keep everything in one piece!) it all pays off when we see how much the kids enjoy the activities that were designed for them. Because the most important thing is leaving the children to have a positive association with their beautiful natural environment. They are the future and they should not HAVE to conserve their surroundings, the key is that they should want to!