Early Childhood Education Conference

The Australia and New Zealand Governments have worked very hard to build up the Early Childhood Education programs here in Vanuatu.  The Vanuatu government recognizes the importance of Kindy but only provides limited financial assistance for it at this point.  Each Kindy is built and supported by its community which can either be a wonderful thing or more frustrating.  Some communities embrace the schools and acknowledge it's significance but other communities think the government should be in charge.  Every three years the Kindy teachers in Penama Province come together for a conference.  They all have to pay their own transportation and do fundraising to provide food and facilities for the week.  This years conferenc was held in Gambule, Maewo. 

Before the conference began the participants arrived and paraded through the village with hand made banners chanting about the importance of Pre School Education.  Their energy and excitement was uplifting.

 We had a wonderful custom welcome from the chiefs of this village.  They danced and dressed in ceremonial clothes to welcome the conference participants.

 Customary salu salus were hung on all of the invited guests.  This is a custom that we do for all big events.  The salu salus are basically what we know as "leis" from Hawaii.  They are made from local flowers and leaves and area always beautiful!

 During the conference I ran two workshops.  Each workshop I presented 6 times to 6 groups of about 10-15 Kindy Teachers from the three islands, Maewo, Pentecost, and Ambae that make up Penama Province.  Each workshop session was 1 hour and 30 minutes.  My first workshop was titled "Early Intervention."  I talked about how to identify students that are slow learners or extra bright and how to use the activities they already use to build up areas of weakness.  Here are a few of my chart papers in Bislama.

 The participants worked in groups to match some of the pre reading, writing, and math skills that the Kindy students should master before transitioning to year 1 with activities to develop them more if they are weak.  Then they took this list of activities with them home as a resource for using in their Kindys.

 At the end of the conference we had our parade again and were given salu salus.  The participants brought island baskets and various other locally made gifts with them to present to us as thank yous.