Friday 18th October 2019

I nearly become a member of the PTA at the British School in Colombo (BSC) in the second week of us being in Sri Lanka – I was probably too keen. However, I am a side-line member and agreed to be the lead of the Europe stall for United Nations Day, organised by the PTA.

The PTA at the BSC is a strong association of 12 mums.  These places are sought after as there are some privileges with this volunteer job such as car parking space in the underground school car park and free access to the school to use the office and facilities.

The UN Day was an amazing occasion with 15 stalls from different countries around the school courtyard and along the edge of the playground, presenting their traditions, costumes, flags, language, games, and mostly their food!  The PTA and other volunteers have worked tirelessly for about 3 weeks to prepare a unique experience for the children and staff to learn and benefit from.  54 different nationalities are represented in the BSC pupils and this day was a showcase of learning, laughing, working, supporting and living together.

Apart from European food, we had flags, stickers for their event passports of the 13 European countries represented at BSC, a game of paper fishes to catch with different flags on to keep as a book mark, a game of landing coins on top of melting mountains to emphasise global warming, and bracelets made out of beads in the colours of a flag with a “Hello” written on them in that language.

It was a long and hard day as we were only 8 mums running the stall from 6.45-13.30 with children coming in batches.  I took the opportunity to teach them something about each represented country and you may want to know, that England was the most popular.  A challenge was to keep the food as fresh as possible in the heat and humidity, but to be honest, kids will eat anything!

I was told I am a good leader, which was pleasing to hear and kids were proud to have me at school all day long. Steve came to do some pictures in the morning and was very impressed with what he found and how it encapsulated what we hoped that our children would experience whilst living here.  I think you would have loved to be invited to a day like this, where the message was clear – One World.  We can assure you, we are experiencing it here to the full!

Rennie