In celebration of the Spring holidays, Earthchild Project  put together a fun, hands-on holiday programme for children from age 7 to 14 years. During the holiday programme, we discovered the wonders of yoga, dance and play, along with crafts, comedy, drama and other awesome learning experiences.

This time serves as a much needed break for learners and educators in the ECP schools, and it also serves as a safe space for learners at a time when they would otherwise be unsupervised.  This holiday period, parents had the opportunity to ensure that their children were exposed to recreational and educational activities instead of being exposed to unhealthy and risky lifestyle choices.

We were lucky to be joined on the first day of the holiday programme by Pascal of Slowitis along with a family from Switzerland who volunteered their time for the day. Pascal said, “It was incredibly moving to learn about these little kids’ backgrounds. Some of them being highly energized, jumping around, giggling; others more quite, still tired or simply trying to deal with their heavy stories. Yoga and guided meditation are wonderful tools to help them ground and connect, help them deal with their burden in a healthier way, help them open up to the sacred circle that has been created in order to share bits and pieces with someone they can trust.”

Highlights included modeling competitions, indigenous African games, and singing, a favourite among all the children and volunteers who join!

We love the time of year when the holiday programmes come together, where children come together to share in the fun and excitement, and  where volunteers come and show their support. It is a time when our facilitators really give their all and we are so grateful to them for the added energy, time and love that they bring to these much-needed programmes. Our junior staff yoga facilitator, Siki said “What was rewarding and kept me going was that the kids showed up every day in huge numbers, wanting to spend their holidays and have fun with us”.

With such yet another successful holiday programme behind us, we look forward to growing these worthy projects from term to term! If you would like to sponsor a holiday programme or volunteer at the next one, please send an email to carly@earthchildproject.org

The Earthchild Project Team would like to extend a huge thank you to Ilan Kaplan and Chic Mamas Do Care for their support of this years holiday programmes and for making them the success that they were!