Empower 450 Vulnerable Children & Families

TIPA is currently working on the theme of plants with Miss Virginie from Pointes aux Sables' school. The collaboration with TIPA is an obvious choice for Virginie, who explains: “The fact that plants are a living thing, including this theme in the creativity classes makes this scientific chapter more fun and interesting.”

To allow the children to discover and experiment with plants, they took a field trip last month to the nursery, Le Colibri, in Beau Bassin, where Mr. Mario, the nurseryman, had invited them. “The first thing that amazed the children was that they could walk barefoot," explains Virginie. Throughout the day, the pupils were free to move around and do whatever they wanted around the plants. The field trip was exactly what Virginie was hoping for. The children were able to observe and touch the very things they were used to seeing in their books. 

The children also had the opportunity to sow seeds in small plant pots that day. Everyone took their plant pots into the classroom and as the days went by, they were amazed to see their plants growing. The children will take their plants home with them for the holidays.

The children loved this pedagogical day. They participated in a treasure hunt, visited an abandoned house... but most of all, they faced their fear of insects by putting their hands and feet for 10 seconds in the soil. They enjoyed it so much that they repeated the same activity with their friends.

The headmaster was very pleased with the TIPA field trip. She wanted the children to display their plant pots in the schoolyard so that the other children could also look at them, but the children love their plants so much that they prefer to keep them in their classroom. Instead, they shared that they wanted to plant something else in their schoolyard. The headteacher comes around every day to see their plants and suggested that the children show their plant pots to their classmates during recess and explain what they learned on the field trip, especially their discovery of manure.

Virginie and Jacques-Henri, TIPA's Art Facilitator want the children's work to be showcased to their parents. They also intend to make a video montage to give to the parents and do a presentation during the school assembly so that the children who are not familiar with TIPA can see what their friends have done during the art workshops. A future joint project would be the creation of an album. 

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Collaborating with passionate teachers who want to change their teaching practice.

Schools are now open to all children in Mauritius and our artistic workshops have also resumed for the greater enjoyment of children. This year, we are working in 3 ZEP schools and like every year, each session brings its share of surprises (good surprises) and discovery.

TIPA's art facilitator has programmed a calendar of activities with different themes to tackle with the children. But this work could not have been done alone. Thus, 3 teachers with whom we have been collaborating for more than a year held a brainstorming session and shared ideas on the way they teach and how we could apply art in teaching.

Several positive points emerged from this session. These teachers, Miss Razia, Miss Virginie and Miss Lisiane shared that teaching is really a vocation for them and that they would be ready to do more than they are asked for, because they know that pupils need their teachers to give them value, support them and reach out to them through innovative pedagogical approach so as to prevent school dropout.

For a greater impact on the children, we also plan to resume our interventions with their parents. In order to respect the restrictions of sanitary measures, TIPA will welcome no more than 10 parents per session and per class where our art facilitator intervenes. We look forward to these enriching moments and we will be happy to share news of the outcome in our next report.

Links:

• Feel free to follow TIPA's Facebook page for more news.