Last Thursday some members of the 3C's drove up Dere-Kus Primary School, a tiny village school located up on the snowline, high above the Antalya road. To say that the road there was difficult is an understatement, as part of the road (track?) had suffered a landslide during the recent storms.
The school is located about 90 minutes, very careful drive, from Fethiye on the other side of the hill to Bozalan village school which is the very poor school that CBF had nominated as it's 2012 charity project - see
http://www.calis-beach.co.uk/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=218Dere-Kuz school building, unlike Bozalan, is in good condition being only 13 years old as the previous school building had been demolished in a landslide. The school has only two rooms plus the teachers room and only 13 children aged between 6 and 9. They are taught in one classroom all at the same time by the school headmistress/teacher who happens to be the wife of the village Imam.
The 3C's first visited this school with a representative of FETAV (the Foundation that the 3C's legally work under) last October to meet the children and to see what the school needed. The children were lovely, polite and welcoming but it was very obvious that they had very little in the way of educational toys, puzzles, reading books and other stimulating materials. Also there was no outside playground equipment and their only outside toy was a burst football. The teacher said that they would love some balls to play with.
Just before Christmas we purchased two sturdy metal double swing sets and two seesaws and had these erected in the school grounds. We also provided two large picnic tables and benches so that the children would be able to eat their lunch and enjoy lessons outside when the weather gets warmer.
On Thursday, the project finally reached successful completion when some of our members visited the school to distribute lots of other goodies to the children - giant Lego bricks, glove puppets, skipping ropes, footballs, a junior basketball hoop and basketball, spacehoppers, puzzles, toy carpenters tools and tea and cooking sets, as well as reading books, exercise books and pens and other basic stationery items.
To see the children's first bewildered, and then amazed faces light up was really something else! It seemed that they had never seen some of the sorts of toys before and had to be shown what they were. Kadriye from FETAV even had to demonstrate skipping with a proper skipping rope to the girls.
Bearing in mind that there is only one weekly dolmus to and from the village, and without any transport, it is likely that the furthest some of these children have ever been to in their young lives is the nearest town of Kemer - no theme parks and X boxes for them!
Saying that, it did not take them long to discover how to play with the toys and when some of our members went outside it was to see a couple of the boys drilling and hammering stones and a group of girls grinding down soil in one of the toy saucepans and cooking grass in the other!
Role play for the girls - what a fantastic view from the school though!
It was a really satisfying and rewarding day for our team - a real feel good factor seeing the happy smiling faces of the children - and this is what it all about - and one of the reasons why we and I am sure the other local children's charities such as FiG and Embrace choose to spend our free time fundraising to help these kids.
Kadriye (FETAV) and forum/3C's members Mercury (Anne) and Dizzy Jan (Jan)
The 3C's would like to sincerely thank everyone on the forum who supports our charity, as it is your generosity and kindness that helps us to make a difference to the daily lives of these children.
We know that in the present economic climate, everyone is feeling the pinch but we really hope that you will be able to support the chosen CBF 2012 project - helping Bozalan School, as this poor neighbouring school to Dere-kuz really does need lots of help. It is one of the poorest schools that we have been to and although the school may be provided with the basic items to educate the children - a teacher, blackboard and a few books - the children have very little else and it would be great to provide them with some of the nicer things to enjoy now that the fabric of the building has been sorted out.
