Holiday Break Program

Holiday Break Program – by Marianne H.

After a couple weeks of studying and tests, the children of the BCI Academy had a week long break from school. During that break, we organized two holiday programs – one for the younger children and one for the teenagers. A majority of the children do not have many things to do during their break since very few have toys or the like to play with. Some of the children help their families with jobs, watch their little brothers or sisters while their mom is working or hang around the street. So we saw this break as a good opportunity for us to teach them from the Bible, to teach them some social skills and to give them a fun time.

The Teenagers.

The first two days we had a program for the teenagers of BCI and around 30 teenagers showed up. The children were divided into teams and each team made up their own team names and charts. Each day started with a team meeting and prayer. After that, the teenagers started their day with team building sessions in which each team could earn points by working together to do jobs around the school like cleaning up the school, shining the leader’s shoes, etc. These duties were mainly purposed to stimulate good behavior; no fighting, obey the leaders and participation. There was an amazing team-spirit during the sessions as everyone worked together to do the jobs and do them well.

After team building sessions, the teenagers were taught lessons from the Bible. The theme of the lessons was: ‘Our God is greater’ and the two Bible stories that were taught were Gideon and Jericho. Through the whole program, we tried to teach them how great our God is. The kids then received a balance meal for lunch.

Music Workshop.

In the afternoon we did workshop rounds with the teenagers. We wanted to challenge their creative talents, something they are not often challenged on. Every teenager could choose a focus; there was music, drama and art. On the end of the second day, we had a little show – “BCI got talent” – in which the children could showcase what they had worked on in their workshops. The art workshop group showed the big painting they made, the music workshop group sang their song and the drama workshop group did their drama.

The teens doing their drama skit.

On Thursday and Friday it was time for the younger children to come and join the holiday break program. They were also split into groups and participated in the team building sessions just like the teenagers. Their Bible story time was filled by a puppet play where the BCI social workers played a puppet skit with hand puppets. This was a big hit and the children loved the puppet show. They also had some time for singing and games. The children were then served lunch and in the afternoon we did crafts and competitions. At the end of the second day, every team made their own drama and performed for the whole group.

The group of younger children.

During the days of the program I was blessed to see a lot of smiles, laughter and joyous children. While watching them run around and have fun, I would almost forget that they come from very hard backgrounds; mud huts, lack of food and clothing, and many broken families. I pray the children had the same wonderful experience that I did and that, even if just for a few days, they could forget all their troubles and just enjoy being a child.