Help with Food
Tuesday 27 of march Graduation Crame
My last day in the Philippines and now I am surrounded by wonderful children with big smiles. I was lucky enough to be able to attend the graduation of the children in Star of Hope Preschool in Crame. At the end of the week there will also be graduation in Taytay for the elementary and high school children and in the beginning of next week the children in Ilog, Infanta will have the very first class of children to graduate as that school is new.
When the big event started here in Crame they played happy yet celebratory music while the children walked in all in a long row. There were 70 graduates between 4 and 6 years old, oh so cute they were in their white miniature graduation gowns and white hats. All the girls were wearing corsages and a flower necklace with pink ribbon while the boys wore flower necklaces with blue ribbon. It was so cute!
In the Philippines the children even graduate from Preschool and then from elementary school and finally high school. It is a very big deal and a big celebration. The parents are so proud of their children and that they have finished the first part of their education. Other big celebrations in the Philippines are the two special birthdays, when the children turn one and seven. This has to do with that the child has survived their first and the seventh birthdays. The celebration when they finished preschool is because they are now starting another milestone on their way.
The ceremony started with the Philippines national anthem “Bayang Magilius” and everyone stood up holding their hand on their heart while they sang. Directly after a six year old girl Jasmine Joy Ureta held the opening prayer as; her proud parents had tears in their eyes. We also were proud to have as special guests such as the vice Mayer of San Juan Francis Zamora and other councilmen. In their speeches they were talking about the children as “Little big stars” and one of the councilmen said to the children to “aim for the stars, the clouds is not a bad place to be”. The Vice Mayor also said to all of us “we are all partners in education”. They also gave out ribbons and medals to the children and I saw how proud the parents were to shake the Vice Mayors hand when their children received their medals for outstanding School achievements.
All the children got a least one ribbon and it was everything from most active to the neatest, most thoughtful to the most generous, most kind to most behaved, it was a lot of medals . The medals were in different “levels”; bronze, silver and gold was given for school achievements like math, reading, writing, art etc. I would not mind having my own medal as they were really nice looking.
In between the giving out ribbons and medals some of the children were dancing in white clothes to the Christian song “Above all” with the chorus “crucified laid behind a stone”. The girls did a great job and I couldn’t help but sing along. The last thing on the agenda was to give out the diplomas and then all the children sang “Diyos nang salinlahi”, my absolute favorite Filipino song. It means The God of all generations and our father is so good.
What a great ending to my trip to the Philippines yet I will blog some more when I get back to the states I have still so much to write about.
Maria
