14/11/2023
ECTARC Alunga Education and Care Service Christmas Shoe Box Project
There was a great response to the Christmas project, which involved families filling up a shoe box with toys, stationary, clothing and fun items suitable for children. These boxes are then shipped to over 100 underprivileged countries around the world, where living conditions are hard and poverty prevails.
For Manori, who is from Sri Lanka-a third world country, this project is very close to her heart. From Manori - On my regular travels around Sri Lanka, I see the poverty and hunger in rural areas. I see the need for a project such as this , to give those children a sense of hope, excitement and tremendous joy that a simple box of goodies can bring, amongst their daily battle to survive.
Since the project began, Educators have been discussing the importance of compassion, empathy, helping those in need and most of all, we have been raising awareness of poverty around the world, to the preschoolers at Alunga. The have spoken about how the children receiving the shoe boxes have never ever received a gift in their life and how delighted they would be and how they would treasure these boxes.
Parents have commented on how involved their children were, by selecting the gifts and packing them in boxes & drawing pictures to enclose in the boxes.
Educators regularly discuss the importance of gratitude too, and during morning circle time, the preschoolers are asked what they are thankful for. Whilst the children often say they are grateful for various toys, Educators have opened up their minds to be thankful for simple things we take for granted- such as a house to live in, a hot shower & food on the table & clean water to drink.
This shoe box project has certainly helped teach the children about global poverty and how we could all do our bit to help spread joy and kindness to those less fortunate.
ECTARC Alunga has handed over 40 beautifully packed shoe boxes to the Illawarra coordinator Lyn Brown, who was delighted with the response and thanked the ECTARC Alunga community for their generosity. The boxes are headed to Fiji, Philippines, Namibia and Ukraine, among other countries.
Thank you to the ECTARC Alunga community 👏🌈🧡