At the workshop.....

Hello everyone

Its been a long time.........life has been busy as I have been preparing for our Trainer of Trainers workshop which is now half way through!  Preparations were hectic as we make a lot of materials at the workshop and so we had a lot to do especially the week before we began.

 It was good to have my two trusted assistants to assist in the preparations...Nicolas and Foster.........they did a great job.

The workshop began last Monday and I have three facilitators to assist me in preparing these Trainers to work in the community.  Here you can see Maureen reading a story to the participants.

and MacLeod and Andrew who are all doing a great job and have a wealth of experience!

Not forgetting myself of course......

The participants are having a lot of fun, making new friends and learning more than they ever imagined about Early Childhood Development.  They come from all over the north representing 17 Presbyteries.  On Friday the ToT's who are already serving in Presbyteries will come to join them for 4 days!

group work

a healthy baby????

drama

games

materials which we would class as rubbish, but from which we make play materials for our centres

making glue from Cassava

making paint

green paint from leaves

red paint from flowers

moulding clay

Improvising...... we needed a sieve......

and as usual a photograph of me waving my arms about!

Some of our learning materials

Its been a good workshop so far.  We are in Ekwendeni at LISAP where the food is excellent and the environment is good for learning.  On Friday this group will hopefully get a certificate from the Ministry so that they can go out as Trainers of Trainers.  But as I told them at the weekend this is only the beginning - they have so much more to learn and I hope they stay with us and support our Early Childhood Programme.  They are all volunteers and so if they receive paid employment they are likely to move on - and who would blame them.  All our caregivers in the ECD centres are volunteers too, so life is tough if you don't get paid for your job!

Please continue to pray for your country, it seems the fuel queues are back again after a few weeks of things being a bit easier.  On Saturday when I was going back to Mzuzu there was a horrific minibus accident where I believe 4 people died - the bus had overturned and a colleague from Mzuzu was on it.  He is presently in hospital recovering.  Please pray for safety as we travel on the roads especially in the rains where there is a lot of mud and roads are slippy.

Wishing you all good week,

Diane