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Qizildash English Project
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With the financial support of the British Council, AzETA Young Learners Special Interest Group started an English Language Project for the orphans in Qizildash in October 2004, which, according to the
project impact study, was a complete success and returned outcomes far beyond what was expected. Now BP provides transportation for the Project teachers to continue the Project.
Qizildash is a district in Gobustan region of Baku. There is a Vocational Educational Lyceum # 8 where 50 orphans study. These are the children at the ages of 15-17. They get basic vocational training which does not provide necessary demand-based language training. They live in the Lyceum dormitory.
ENJOY ENGLISH SUMMER CAMP 1
With the financial support of the British Council managed Hornby Educational Trust AzETA organised a summer camp 15-22 August 200 5involving 10 children from Qizildash, 4 members of AzETA Enjoy English Club who helped the Project teachers in organising cultural events.
As a member of RENTA (Regional Network of Teachers’ Association) AzETA also closely co-operates with ETAG (English Teachers’ Association of Georgia) implementing joint projects. AzETA involved ETAG in this project, too, and invited some children from Georgia to the summer camp. So, this was a partner project.
The aim of the summer camp was to bring these children together, to organise different contests, discussions with them alongside with organising a cross-cultural event where the children recited poems, sang songs, and demonstrated performances in Azerbaijani, English, Georgian and Russian. The children also had a one-week English speaking environment where they had different daily activities that helped them improve their English skills.
The children were also taken to different historical places of Baku, namely, Ateshgah (Fire Worshippers Temple), Maiden Tower, Old City and to a botanical garden.
"Dan Ulduzu" (Morning Star) children's music group and Orient Xpress, a band composed of different nationalities residing in Baku were the guests of the summer camp with their very interesting music programmes.
When the children were asked on their impressions on the summer camp at the closing ceremony all of them said they were happy not only for learning the word "friendship", but also feeling and experiencing it.
ENJOY ENGLISH SUMMER CAMP 2
Seeing the impact of the first summer camp, AzETA managed to organise Summer Camp 2 in Sheki and Qebele on 19-26 August 2006 with the financial support of AMEC, Rolls Royce, IREX and US FLEX Programme.
The summer camp started on 19 August in Qebele with an opening session where apart from AzETA President, the representatives of IREX and FLEX welcomed the children. The opening was followed by free time for the children where they enjoyed the beauty of the nature.
The next day the children were involved in different activities. The teachers had prepared different communicative activities and English only atmosphere were created during the summer camp. Although the children’s English was limited, they managed to express themselves with their limited English. Day two ended with a cultural event where famous poet Tajeddin Shahdagli was invited. He recited some poems for the children and answered the questions of the children about literature, poetry and his creative activities.
While in Qebele children were taken to the History Museum of Qebele, Nohur Golu (a lake), Yeddi Gozel (Seven Beauty) waterfall.
On Day 3 in the afternoon they were taken to Sheki where they stayed till the end of the summer camp, i.e. 25 August.
Apart from the teachers, the members of AzETA Enjoy English Club (EEC) also presented different activities. The members of this Club are the talented children from different secondary schools of Baku uniting under AzETA Young Learners SIG umbrella. The aim of involving them in giving presentations was to encourage these orphans through demonstrating them how their peers fluently spoke English. This encouraged the orphans very much and they were more active in the activities given by their peers. They requested to establish EEC in Qizildash, too.
EEC members would also help the teachers in organisational matters during the summer camp. They would encourage the orphans to speak English only during the summer camp and would help them during the activities.
Catherine Thompson, English Language Fellow who is based in Ganja also attended the summer with her own expenses and stayed with the children in Sheki for 2 days. She gave different interesting activities,
At the closing ceremony the children were given symbolic presents to remember the camp. Some children shared their impressions at the closing ceremony thanking the donors and organisers of the summer camp which left them with fond memories. The teachers also shared their impressions wishing to organise such events in future, too, as they help the children feel belonging to the world. When asked the word they learned at the summer camp, the children unanimously said: FRIENDSHIP. They were very happy to leave the camp having made new friends.
ENJOY ENGLISH SUMMER CAMP 3
As all these efforts yield very good results, AzETA continues to seek funding for organising summer camp for Qizildash Project beneficiaries.
Summer Camp 3 was organised on 19-22 August 2007. This time it was organised in Lotos Resort Centre in Nabran. The aim of the summer camp was to bring these children together, to organize different contests and discussions along with organizing cultural events where the children recited poems, sang songs, and demonstrated performances in English.
The children also had an English speaking environment during the summer camp where they had different daily activities focused on civic education and basic hygiene rules that will help them improve their English skills, also their awareness on their rights raised.
Topics for discussion included - I and Others, Education in Our Life: Importance of Learning English, My Rights, Enviroment and Us, Say "No" to Bad Habits, World is Our Home, What We Know about EESC 3 Donors, etc. The students were very active during the discussions. With their limited English they all tried to make contribution to the work of the groups they were included. All activities were interactive and students enjoyed them very much.
To teach them some leadership skills, each day one of the students was appointed the Leader of the Day. It produced a very good result where they felt importance, responsibility.
In the evenings the students had an opportunity to enjoy at the disco organised by the Resort Centre.
The donors of this year’s summer camp included AzETA, Community Shield Azerbaijan, KCA Deutag, Panalplina.
CBN Extra issued an article on the summer camp in one of its September issues.
AzETA continues classes in Qizildash during the school year including enrichment activities like celebrating national and international holidays to help these children integrate into society and grow as the builders of the civil society in Azerbaijan. If you are interested in the work of the Programme and/or want to make contribution towards the enrichment activities, please, contact us.
Uniting Efforts
All Moslems of the world celebrated Eid-Al-Fitr (end of Holy month of Ramadan) last week-end. One of the special features of Ramadan is to help the people in need.
AzETA initiated a charity activity and visited Qizildash on Friday, 12 October. The aim was to celebrate end of Ramadan together with these orphans. Some food, clothing items were bought for these children with the help of the donations made by AUKAA (Azerbaijan-UK Alumni Association) and AzETA members, as well as the friends from BP, British Council, Azercell, Ericsson-Turkey.
The orphans were very happy that they were not forgotten on this special day and thanked the organisers and all the people who contributed to this noble charity activity.
Now in collaboration with Community Shield Azerbaijan and AUKAA AzETA has started a campaign for generating income towards the expenses of educating two orphans - Oleg and Elvin who are very keen to get higher education at the universities of Azerbaijan. Read more at the News page of our website. |
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