They may be only three or four years old but this afternoon, hundreds of Belize City preschoolers armed with placards braved the hot weather to make their own little demand: empower the future generation. The march through the principal streets officially kicked off the annual observance of Child Stimulation Month. This afternoon the boys and girls lined up outside the Bliss Center to begin their trek from the southside to the northside.
Denese Pitzold, Principal - Pickstock Pre-School
“We do this so that we highlight the little children of Belize and they haven’t reached primary school as yet but some people tend to think that pre-school isn’t important. We celebrate this whole month of March, we dedicate to the children, we have this parade. Our theme as you see is, ‘Empowering the future generation.’ We want the people to come out, to look at the parade, to see that these children have rights and we do everything that we can to get them ready for primary school.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
And how better prepared are children who have attend pre-school to go on to primary school?
Denese Pitzold,
“They are better prepared in the sense that they develop their motor and their fine skills. When they get there we develop, they learn how to react to other children, they learn how to share, they learn how to better work in an environment when they get to primary school. It is for example if you are building a house, the most important part is the foundation and when that child has that foundation, they get to primary school and they are much more settled, they know how to interact, they can more understand the work at primary school than if you just take them from home and put them into primary school and they have to add and subtract and learn to write their names. Some parents teach their kids at home, some people don’t do that.”
The parade culminated at the Memorial Park where the children enjoyed entertainment provided by their peers.
