From September 19 to 23, the 2nd Education & Sports Festival -2014 was held by the Nepal Service for Peace Foundation in Sarlahi, Nepal. About 3200 people including students, teachers and local residence from Barahathawa area came to the festival. The director from KOICA Nepal office and the minister of Urban Development also attend the event.
This year’s festival consists of School Speech Competition, Teacher’s Seminar, Barahathawa Child &Youth Library Opening Ceremony, Education Rally, and soccer game. It was a grand festival that shakes the whole Barahathawa village. Men and women of all ages enjoyed the festival delightfully and sometimes filled with emotions.
School Speech Competition
16 students participated in the speech competition with the theme of “Education Raises the Nation”. There were three times more prize winner this year’s competition because of the participating students’ high level speeches. The grand prize winner pointed “Education is the most important basics in development, and the development not based on education is risky.” in his speech.
Teacher’s seminar on teacher & library
Teachers are the ones who in charge of education. 50 teachers from Sarlahi area gathered to take the lecture about the importance and power of education and debated about how to improve the poor educational environment of Sarlahi area. The lecturer emphasized about the importance of the library. The lecturer also said; “Parents want their children to focus on academic studies to receive higher score in school. However, this is not a good idea. The way to convince the parents that children better to read various books beside textbooks to build well-grounded knowledge is encouraging the parents themselves to visit the library.” It was a good chance to think about the importance of the library to the teachers, also, useful opportunity to utilize the new Barahathawa children & Youth Library.
Education Rally and Barahathawa Child Youth Library Opening Ceremony
The festival started energetically by Education Rally, the main event of this festival, on September 23. Over 1000 teachers and students from Barahathawa area schools let village people know the importance of education by marching through the village streets and shouting the slogan “Education raises the nation”.
Also, people of all social standings, politicians, businessmen, female leaders, from Barahathawa community came and addressed the importance of the education and the importance of the library and ask the audience to help and take part in the Educational Environment Improvement Project by Service for Peace Nepal. Especially, the minister of Urban Development gave the memorable speech as below.
“In development, building infrastructure is important but also talented people who has wide knowledge is significant. If earthquake happens the buildings would collapse but the competent people who knows how to cope with earthquake would prepared for the disaster. Education is essential to bring up that talented people, and libraries are necessary for that education.”
Above all, the long-waited Barahathawa child & Youth Library finally opened which finished construction last February after two and half years of construction from 2012.
There are three pledges all the village residents promised on this opening ceremony:
1. I will read one book in a month.
2. I will donate one book to the library in a month.
3. I will do literacy education for one person a year
Indeed it had been long and slow two and half years from construction to opening, it was maybe a warm up time for the villagers to accept the library. By Informing why education is important, by teaching how to read to women who didn’t have chance to educated, and by remodeling mini libraries of the small countryside schools, the library that would fulfill the villagers dream finally became their own.
Wish for the villagers to take pride in themselves with well-to-do library from now on, although it was a neglected area so far. And wish for that pride will become the foundation to cultivate the better life in the future.
As commemorating the Barahathawa Child & Youth Library opening, we express our gratitude to all the people who helped to open the library with all their heart.
