Children's Day Wednesday 23rd April

[nichola]

Children's Day events start at 12 noon in Fethiye Public square.

There will be all sorts of free activities for children like face painting, drawing etc much like last year and there will be stalls hosted by charities and organisations. I understand there will be a card given to children so they can take part in the activities - not sure how that will be managed.

At 4pm performances like zumba, dancing, singing etc will start.

Apparently there are two other countries represented by their children that may or may not be in national dress. Turkish children will not be wearing national costumes because the organisers want the children to feel free to wear what they want.

I'll probably be floating around during the afternoon snapping away and definitely around to try and capture some of the children's performances at 4pm

Hopefully see some of you there   

[Pi55y]

It should be a lovely day.  The 3C's are paying to transport two schools to come down for the celebrations , Kayadibi school near Saklikent and little Izettinkoy village school between Esen village and Kalkan.  Both schools have been subjects of recent 3C's projects and many of the children have never been to Fethiye or seen the sea before.

The 3C's will have a stand on the square on Wednesday afternoon and will be giving out small presents and sweets to the children as well as blowing up around 1000 balloons to give to the children.  If you have spare time lots of puff please come and join us!!!!!

[Highlander]

It WILL be a special day   .

If possible, photographs would be much appreciated.

[angela]

We have seen lots of beautifully dressed kids around today, lots of very handsome little boys in their fezes, and little girls in national dress,, but we saw one sweet child  gloriously dressed as a bumblebee who was so sweet.

[Scunner]

Used to love Children's Day when we lived over there. So did the kids I think, I never thought to ask.

[Pi55y]

We saw a four year old ladybird in Gunlukbasi this afternoon! 

Pete and I have spent the evening wrapping up small presents to give to the children who visit our stand tomorrow afternoon and we have several kilos of sweets as well as balloons to hand out.

Lovely Yaser and his wife who run the new English Learning centre are meeting our party of 32 youngsters from Izzetinkoy village school for us at Calis Boat office later tomorrow morning and the kids will have an extended boat trip around the bay from Calis to Fethiye before arriving for the festivities.

Fingers crossed that the weather is nice tomorrow as showers are forecast.

[mercury]

The kids will love the boat trip.. What a lovely thing to do before visiting The square... A day these kids will remember forever... A day that they first saw the sea bet they can't sleep with excitement. A trip that our kids in the UK take for granted is a huge deal for the village children. ..well done Pete and Chrissie.. So hope the rain stays off..

[hubblebubbles]

This was indeed a very special day and was so well organised so well done to the Fetav team who did all the hard work while we had the fun bit.  I do hope Nicola managed to take lots of photographs as it was so beautiful seeing so many children enjoying themselves . Embrace too had a stall  on which we gave out hundreds of pencils with rubbers which were from UK so extremely popular plus about 150 bracelets and cakes and biscuits and a variety of other small gifts. We asked the children to say something in English ie. "My name is ...."  or "please and thank you". Out of the hundreds we just had four parents who were actually quite rude and said "Why are you making our children speak English when they are Turkish and you are in Turkey "!!!!!!! Not said very nicely either but it didn't spoil our day   Thankfully the hundreds of others appreciated the banter and the gift. We also sponsored a rehabilitation centre and bought gifts for all the children as they were unable to go round all the stalls to collect their prizes. For those of you who would like to know how it was organised the children were given cards to hang round their neck and this had 8 different coloured sections .There were so many stalls all giving gifts and the idea was for the children to look at the stalls to see which gift they would like then the card was marked so in theory each child should go home with at least 8 small gifts they had chosen . A brilliant day and we would like to thank all those concerned with organising everything. A Job Well Done.

[nichola]

It really was a great day and the children all seem happy and entertained. A lot of work by FETAV staff and volunteers goes into organising this day and they are to be congratulated for organising a second event which is more about the children enjoying themselves than about the pomp and ceremony that was the norm in preceding years; although I do miss seeing all the children from around the world in their national dress!

There were some wonderful performances by different groups of children in national costume, face painting, painting stones and pictures, karaoke, some awards with certificates and cups, search and rescue were there giving children the chance to experience some of what they do as well as bands, a cycle event and many stalls like Embrace and the 3C's.

I took almost 600 photos so it may take a while to select and put an album together but I will post to my FB page in the next couple of days and make it a public link so that those that are interested can view them. If someone wants to copy them to this topic they are more than welcome.

A really lovely day   

[Pi55y]

Yes it was wonderful day and the sun shone throughout.  I would best describe it as "organised chaos" and that is meant in the nicest possible way.  FETAV did a brilliant job and with several thousand children on the square throughout the afternoon, many accompanied by their parents, it was manic and you can only imagine the noise.  Lots of children performed readings, poems and dances, many wearing national costume and fancy dress, whilst others rushed around collecting their free gifts from the various stalls.

On the 3C's stand we were lucky to have been loaned a generator and compressor which is just as well as we gave out 1000 balloons as well as wrapped gifts of bubbles, whistles, blowers, pencil cases and stationary items as well as several kilos of sweets.

Our youngsters from Izzetinkoy village school, who we paid to have bussed down for the festivities, had a wonderful time.  They were kindly met at Calis boat office on behalf of the 3C's by Yaser and Arzu from the new English Learning Centre who then accompanied them and their teachers on an enjoyable boat trip around the bay, taking in the new duck island and Sovaliye island on the way (as well as some dancing on the boat), before bringing them to the 3C's stand where the children all received special presents.  Afterwards they went off to play in the park before starting the 50km journey back to their village.

Here are some of our pictures to start off with (unfortunately we were too busy on the stand to take pictures of the other activities going on) but I am sure Nichola will have some lovely ones when she has sorted out her album   






Hard at work on the 3C's stand


One of the activities


The children from Izzetinkoy arrive at the square (Yaser and Arzu (top right)


The children queue to receive their gifts and sweets


















Does the young girl in the centre of the photo look familiar?  - she is our cute calendar girl from this years 3Cs calendar (see back page for those who have them).