Welcoming

A warm welcome to some of the newest students at the Eastleigh Community Centre

It was a joy today to be able to welcome some of the 78 new students who are joining the primary school within the Eastleigh Community Centre. Over the past two months, we have been working together with the community centre's "Child Empowerment Initiative" to identify and sponsor a hundred refugee children to attend primary school. Thanks to the generous support of churches and individuals through The Sharing Way, each of these students were also provided school uniforms and their families are being welcomed to participate in self help initiatives. Thirty-two of their mothers, aunties and older sisters were also welcomed this morning into the Iftin literacy classes where they wrote placement examinations.

Tunis, Zahra Shariff, and Aaron meeting about the kids club

With the addition of so many new refugee kids into the community centre, we are working with two of our Iftin members, Tunis and Zahra Shariff, to organize a weekly children's club for the new Somali kids to play games, build friendships, experiment with art and have a safe place to talk openly and work through the traumatic experiences that most have come through. Both Tunis and Zahra Shariff have experienced the difficult transition that each of these kids are going through and they have thrived with wonderful attitudes of joy, hope, and forgiveness. We are excited to work together to serve these children by creating a place of grace and peace.

Some of the girls proudly showing off their new uniforms. This is the first time for most of these children to have ever gone to school -- it was a BIG day!