On 6th of June 2020, Znaniye organised the second virtual meeting for children across the world!
Following on from our initial meeting, where the children met each other and began to tell us about themselves, this conference the children shared their presentations about the places they get to live in. The children from the UK gladly introduced famous sights of London, such as Kew Gardens and Battersea Park, while the kids from Russia talked deeply about the history and interesting places in the Republic of Dagestan, and prepared a wonderful presentation for us. We all learnt about traditional outfits and what they are called, looking at the landscapes across the seasons, as well as the traditional sports and world famous competitors! Teachers and parents worked with the students to prepare the information for us to enjoy, presented all by the enthusiastic studens.
In order for the students to improve their language skills, presenters from the UK spoke in Russian whereas the kids from Russia spoke in English. This meant the student could practice with each other, and here new accents and ways of speaking. Participants from Azerbaijan supported the idea and also happily talked about their homeland in depth in both Russian and English. This time, we even got attendees from Krasnodar Krai: a few of families who didn’t manage to join the first meeting but were very excited to be a part of this one! It is incredibly rewarding to know that people from so many various places love the idea of connecting the children and are willing to join in the future.
It was a real pleasure for the participants to ‘travel’ online and to be ‘shown around’ different places...There are no boundaries for learning and creative ways to approach the lockdown! Travelling online IS indeed possible, and we proved it. By the end of the meeting, kids exchanged contact details in order to stay in touch and remain friends, which was the initial goal of the event; and last but not least, the participants took the initiative and suggested topics for the upcoming meetings: they’d like to know about many things from traditional food to differences in education systems of Russia and the UK. To conclude, the meeting was a success and the goal of bringing children from different countries together in such a challenging time of the lockdown was reached. Znaniye Foundation with the support of Znaniye Russian School is happy to keep working on strengthening the relations between the kids from all over the world, to learn from other cultures and practices to develop themselves, and their relationships. We can't wait for the next one!
Thank you to Znaniye Russian School for sponsoring this event.