Agape Primary School Performance
AGAPE MYANMAR PRIMARY SCHOOL
Len Hung, Meh Tanda Oo, Bindu, David van Cung Lian, Thang Tawi Sang and Victor Tuang dancing Waka Waka -Shakira
(2nd Dec 2011 - Hartford Academy Graduation)
Myanmar refugees became part of my life when I committed to a few hours a week teaching English in one of their Primary and Secondary schools (AGAPE MYANMAR) in Kuala Lumpur via the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission Refugees) http://www.unhcr.org.my/.
When I first joined, the school director asked me to also dedicate a few hours to teaching Microsoft Office to them.
Hartford Academy is an independent Computer Training company. Together with UNHCR, they offer all refugees in Malaysia the possibility to get trained and eventually get certified in Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Illustrator, html, Blogging, etc for a minimal fee.
Subsequently, our goal at school became to have the children get certified by Hartford Academy and acquire the knowledge and a relevant certificate. The knowledge and the equivalent certificate would ensure more possibilities for them in the future in Malaysia or the country they would eventually be welcome to permanently.
It is with great pleasure to inform you that within only two months, 12 of our school's children got certified with distinction. This is a great achievement, even more so considering that none of these children have a computer at home to practice. They rely on the few ones at school.
Hartford Academy & UNHCR go the extra mile and organize a 'Graduation Day' to seal the occasion and hand the certificates to the children where there are also some dancing and singing performances from the children themselves.
And from teacher, my role changed to that of a choreographer for a couple of weeks!
Even though quite a novice in this domain, I accepted the challenge with pleasure; I was honoured and frankly who would ever turn down a request to dance every day as practice with some incredibly talented and full of great humour kids?
We all together managed to come up with some combinations of steps for Waka Waka - Shakira for the Primary school students. Then, I happily accepted all the cool ideas of the Secondary school students and decided on ...Lady Gaga and her Bad Romance!
The above video is the result of some intense rehearsing; these beautiful kids will be able to share their dance moments of glory with their families and friends back in Myanmar and they gave me a Paula Abdul feeling!
Alan Vernon, UNHCR Representative for Malaysia, shared a story with us during the Graduation Day that touched me deeply. During his visits 20 years ago to Vietnamese refugee camps in Thailand, he had shared similar breathrough moments like our 'Graduation day'. When he now meets Vietnamese people from these camps nowadays in the United States where they settled down, they express their nostalgia for a period of opportunity and growth back then in those camps just because of similar initiatives.
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