Lynne Lawrence opened the morning session with a quote from Maria Montessori’s Education and Peace. Pooja Velji, one of the EsF participants, sang a prayer song in Hindi. Lynne introduced some additional guests for the day. Lynne then shared the Pearls of the Day and addressed housekeeping matters.
Louis George Arsenault who has worked for UNICEF in India since 1995, spoke on Early Childhood Education and Community Empowerment. He argued that in order to address social issues, education is the most important solution in the early years, but it is an area in which NGOs have yet to be successful. He shared some statistics on attendance, dropout rates and educational outcomes in schools and early child centres in different parts of India.
Megan Davies from the Indaba Montessori Academy in Lynedoch Ecovillage in Stellenbosch, South Africa spoke on Montessori in Early Childhood Development as a Pathway to Community Development. The village is a mixed income setting with a crèche that mainly serves farm worker children and is associated with The Sustainability Institute. Megan described some of the opportunities associated with the development of the Academy as well as some of the challenges.
After lunch, the participants broke into Workshop groups on Sustainable Development Goals (Uma) and Dementia (Anne Kelly) to progress group projects.
In the afternoon session, the Working Groups reported back presenting finalised documents for Essential Principles and Core Values, the Preparation of Educateurs, and video examples of capturing stories.
At the end of the day, many of the participants joined in traditional and modern games before dinner that included flying kites, hopscotch, Ludo, catapults, marbles and games with beads and stones.
