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Ceylon Christian Care |
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News |
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March 1st, 2006 Christian English medium school on Sri Lanka Wijbren Jongsma & Elly Kroon
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Dear friends,
The Tamil Area were we like to start the school is an underdeveloped area. High quality education is the basis to develop the community and to create jobs. An important part of the education provided on this school will be to teach the people to communicate and do business with the world outside their village. Because of this, extra attention will be paid to the subjects English and computer. This school will also be a Christian School and the children will here about the Gospel. |
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After this we discussed with Rev Jeyanesan and his wife Shanta about the statutes for the new school. The information received from the John Calvin school of Lethbridge and the Mount Cheam school of Chilliwack, both in Canada, was very useful and was adopted for the new school with only a few changes. For the afternoon meetings were scheduled to have talks with two candidates interested in a teaching job. The first candidate did speak English well. From a didactic point of view she made a good impression as well. However we faced one problem. Her husband and children were Christians, she herself was a Hindu. To our question about her opinion of Christian education she answered that for her as a Hindu it was no problem. Yet, because of this, we decided not to continue with her. On a Christian School we like to have Christian teachers. The second candidate did not appear. It was also a pity that we were not able to talk with the candidate for the principal position. The candidate went to Canada to join the funeral of a family member. The results of this part were a disappointment for us. We also discussed our experience with Rev Jeyanesan. In a country with a Christian (protestant) minority of 2-3 % it is not easy to find Christian teachers. We decided that in case we could not find the right teachers in Sri Lanka to see if we can find Tamil speaking teachers in India who are willing to emigrate. Finally Rev. Jeyanesan asked us to see if there are teachers in Europe or North America who are able and willing to help us with additional training of teachers in Sri Lanka during the starting phase. We promised to study this. The day after we visited a Public school in the neighborhood of our projects. On this school we met a Christian teacher who also speaks English well. We had a good talk with her. A couple of days later we met another Christian teacher. She also works on a Public school and speaks English well. Both are interested to move for a job to the new school. This makes us grateful. It also gives us hope to continue our search. On our way back we visited a Baptist school in Colombo and spoke with the principal. He explained that there were in the past several Baptist schools on Sri Lanka, all in the Singhalese area. However one after the other closed its doors due to lack of money. His school is the last one and it also faces financial problems. We heard that on Sri Lanka there are almost no Christian schools anymore today. The Ceylon Christian Care initiative on the Tamil east coast of Sri Lanka to start a Christian school is considered unique. The principal mentioned that he has many contacts and if we need help we can contact him. To help to start the new school on Sri Lanka more visits are needed. The goals for the short term are the selection of good protestant Christian teachers and developing a good educational curriculum. We like to start with the first four classes and add every year another one. This will help us to select the right teachers. We are grateful about the new contacts. We also experience clearly the blessings of the Lord for this work. We need your prayer for this work. Kind regards, Wijbren Jongsma Ceylon Christian Care |
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It is in our plan to start with the first classes this year in the community hall located close to the church. Teaching rooms are created by placing several walls. When we had a look on Monday Feb 20th the results were hopeful. Five classrooms, a teacher’s room, the director’s office and a store were finished. As a start facility it looked very good. |
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Picture of the community hall with the temporary class rooms |
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Public school in Periyaneelavanai |
