2022 Summer FESA Events Recap

It has been a busy summer for everyone at the Further Education Society of Alberta. In Calgary and online, we have been hosting a variety of summer events: the Online Children’s Summer Program, the Children’s Public Speaking Program, and the in-person “Fund with FESA” Summer Program. We collaborated with the Nepalese Community Society of Calgary (NCSC). These programs were literacy focused, but also made to be fun and engaging.

Online Children’s Summer Program:

This program ran from July 4th to 8th. Each day there was a different theme and literacy activity geared towards that topic: Monday was learning about the difference between being Kind and Nice, Tuesday was on self-love and building self-esteem, Wednesday was science, Thursday was bullying and standing up for yourself, and Friday was managing complex emotions.

The goal of this program was to develop literacy amongst, and to allow participants to learn about useful life skills that go together with literacy. Some activities included word searches, discussions, group work, brainstorming on a whiteboard, and even charades!

Children’s Public Speaking Program:

On May 27th and June 3rd, we held the Children’s Public Speaking Program. Held online, this program helped develop participants public speaking skills through a variety of activities such as tongue twisters, show and tell, making up stories to funny images, and other reading and speaking activities.

Fun with FESA Program:

Every 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM between August 02-05, we held the Fun with FESA Program to develop social and literacy skills of the participants through interacting with other kids and partaking in the different activities.

We wanted to have a new theme for each day that guided the activities. Tuesday was healthy relationships, Wednesday was art, Thursday was effective communication, and Friday was board games. The activities included team-building exercises, Kahoot, Jeopardy, group discussions, answering writing prompts, word mapping, and many more! Alongside the activities, snacks and juice were also provided.

Facilitator comments:

There was ongoing engagement and participation from the participants. They contributed to meaningful discussions and put in their utmost effort in all the activities. Accompanying this was much laughter and joy, making the programs a fun, interactive, and educational space.

A uniting theme in all the programs was the wholesomeness of the kids. The smiles, the waving “goodbyes”, the “thank-yous,” and the screaming all reminded me of how much I missed being a kid. These programs were such a wonderful experience to facilitate. I’ve learned so much from the kids and would hope to be able to facilitate in the future.

These programs wouldn’t have been possible without our funder, Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) and our partner, the Nepalese Community Society of Calgary (NCSC). Thank you for your support.