20 Feb. 2011 Japan
“Know the lives of children in Africa“ Kindergarten Class. Children were excited to study about Africa.
Children looking for Benin on a world map in a picture slide
HFW held a special talk on January 20th in Kojimachi kindergarten in Chiyoda Ward, which is one of the participating organizations of HFW’s Kaisyu Kaijyu (Collecting Monsters) campaign. The campaign aims to collect spoiled postcards in kindergartens to support children in Benin-Gbeto village kindergarten with money exchanged from the postcards. Upon request, HFW staff and interns visit partner kindergartens and introduce what life is like in Benin.
On 20th of January, 15 kids Aged five participated. The first half was spent introducing the lives of children in Benin by showing Powerpoint slides. The kids were surprised to hear that the most of the households have no electricity at home. One said “What do they do? If It is dark inside, they cannot play a video game!!”. They were even more intrigued to know that the kids in Benin get up when the sun comes up and sleep when the sun is down, and that they play a lot outside. In the second half of the talk, HFW staff explained that postcards gathered in Japan can buy the Beninese kids textbooks, notebooks and pens. In order for the children to understand better, this was illustrated through pictures with the campaign character exchanging collected postcards in Japan for textbooks in Benin.
When asked at the end if they would collect postcards for our friends in Benin, the children cheerfully responded, “YES!”
