Welcome Dances and Workshops: First six months in Kiribati

Welcome Dances and Workshops: First six months in Kiribati

By Bridget Kennelly | Introduction by Christine O’Halloran

Bridget Kennelly is a primary teacher working to increase local access to quality education. Bridget works closely with local teachers and students teaching English and providing professional development workshops to assist curriculum development, lesson preparation and classroom teaching.

Bridget has been in placement now for six months. We encourage our volunteers in the first months of placement to focus on building their personal capacity to live and work effectively in a cross cultural context. This involves learning language and one of the recent partner evaluation comments stated:

She is so smart in learning the language and has achieved a great deal of the language.

The beautiful North Tarawa lagoon
Students performing a welcome dance
Students marching for the Feast of St Joseph
Students working in class or looking at the camera
The beginning of Sports Day
The local canoe between North and South Tarawa
Relaxing on my Kia-Kia
Trying my hand at fishing
Students heading south for the holidays

I began my first workshop with the staff (continuing from the introductory work the ACU staff did) yesterday afternoon. It will continue every Wednesday, for 2 hours, until the staff have completed the unit on lesson planning and their assignments. I think it will take until the end of the year, but that’s OK.


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