OCTOBER 2015 NEWSLETTER
This was a successful month for the school featuring a Halloween party and very generous donation from two previous volunteers who now live in Canada. In mid-October we were very fortunate to have Victor and Sabrina visit from Canada who very generously donated a large supply of stationery, books, rucksacks, DVD’s and a DVD player to the school. They had both volunteered with FMA over a year ago so were excited to return to see the progress made in the school. The DVD’s have gone down very well with the children. Victor and Sabrina also led the children on a tour of the historic centre of Santa Marta. We visited the library, the beach and enjoyed a picnic in Parque de los Novios. The children were excited to be on the beach, because although Santa Marta is on the coast, the school is located about 5km inland in barrio Fundadores. The children all live very close to the school so rarely get to see the sea. Thank you Victor and Sabrina for your visit and we hope you can return again at some point in the future. Our potential sponsors from Holland finally had a chance to visit the school. They kindly donated some money to buy a speaker. The speaker has led to regular music and dance classes. Like all Colombians, the children love to dance! Based on some of the dancing and singing we might have the next Enrique Iglesias. Leading up to Halloween we used art classes to make plenty of Halloween-themed arts and crafts. These included bottles cut in half to make trick-or-treat baskets and paper spiral ghosts to hang from the ceiling. We finished the month with a Halloween party. This consisted of lots of Halloween-themed games which the children really enjoyed. Thank you to one of our long-term volunteers Erin for leading most of the games. We used the new speaker to play music and tried to teach some dance moved to the children. The Macarena was a clear favourite! We also watched a couple of Halloween-themed films with the new DVD player donated by Victor and Sabrina.
With some of the volunteers that arrived in September leaving we were pleased to welcome Catharina Glower from Germany to FMA. Thank you to Alex, Rachel, Tanja, Aman and Helena for all your hard work in the school. Good luck with your onward travels and you’ll always be welcome back. We look forward to welcoming Emma Tierney in November.
