Funday Times

Dreams and Teams
By Natasha Fernandopulle
A sports festival was organised by the Girl Guides, for the Little Friends, on the 8th of May at 3 pm, at the Visaka Vidyalaya grounds. It was part of a programme called ‘Dreams and Teams’, conducted by the British Council.

Twenty two Girl Guides, from five schools, were the second batch of young leaders, to participate in this activity. It was the first time the Girl Guides participated in this programme.

The aim of the programme is to improve leadership, communication and presentation skills and also encourage teamwork. Sanjeevani Munasinghe of the British Council said, “Learning through sport is a new concept”. Therefore the base for this programme is sports.

At the end of three days training, the Guides organised a mini sports festival and seventy five Little Friends participated in it. The day’s proceedings started with the arrival of the Chief Guest and the two guests of honour. The Chief Guest was the Principal of Visaka Vidyalaya, Rupa Amerasinghe, and the two Guests of Honour were the Deputy Director of the British Council Anna Searle and the Deputy Chief Commissioner of Girl Guides Thilini Athukorala.

This year’s festival had five events. The teams for the day were ‘Nemo’, ‘Pooh’ and ‘Simba’. There were commentaries throughout the festival in English, Sinhala and Tamil. The organisers also asked a few guests what they thought about the festival. They all said it was well organised and that it was a good programme.

Every aspect of this festival, like food, drink, programmes, invitees and so on, was looked into by the young leaders. The children seemed to have great fun at the festival. Two young leaders who organised the event, said that they had to pre-plan in case it rained. Luckily for them, the weather held up.

The ‘Simba’ team came out victorious at the end of the day. Anna Searle, said that they were, “honoured and proud to have worked with the Girl Guides Association”. The Colombo District Commissioner and a trainer in the programme, Jayanthi Thillekeratne said, “the Guides grasped things quickly and were easy to train. Therefore they reached their goal fast”.

The festival held on the 8th of May was the first of three sports events. This event was co-sponsored by Nestle Lanka Ltd., and the British Council.

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