The day began with a beautiful tribute from the Thai attendees to honour the Queen's birthday. Participants had been encouraged to wear blue, the Queen's colour, and were given a chrysanthemum to honour all Mothers. Lynne Lawrence was presented with an artwork, being an important Buddhist blessing to take back to the AMI office.
Hilary Korir, Caritas Director, Catholic Diocese of Nakuru, Kenya, gave the keynote presentation on the pastoral and community development work of Caritas and in particular the Corner of Hope Project that began in 2010 in Pipeline IDP Camp, Nakuru. Learning about the Caritas work gave the Assembly participants good insight into the support available for the Corner of Hope.
This project shows how Montessori Education can be delivered to the most vulnerable communities such as this Internally Displaced People Camp. The project's name captures its reality as the people have hand built the school and housing. Together they collaborate and have achieved a working Montessori school. All the materials have been beautifully hand made and the children wear tie dyed uniforms made by the women. The school's success has inspired the building of another school at the land nearby given to some of the people from the IDP camp. Lynne Lawrence spoke of AMI's ongoing commitment to the project and her passion shone through her words. An example of the child in London who gave up birthday presents to buy bats and balls for the camp and the children from Kiwikurra - Australia's most remote Aboriginal community school- warmed the hearts of listeners.
Participants worked in their interest groups for the remainder of the day.
