FROM KATE FLETCHER, FOUNDER
Hekima Place has been blessed with support and prayers from Bower Hill church for many years
Now, after nearly a year in construction, the new Primary School adjacent to Hekima Place is nearing completion. We’ve preserved many mature native trees, so the campus already looks established. It will be surely a state-of-the-art school for students from nursery through 9th grade. We are calling it Hekima Hills Learning Centre in recognition that students, parents, teachers and the surrounding community are all lifetime learners, and it’s scheduled to open in January.
The first classes to open will nursery, kindergarten and a 1,2 and 3. The two classrooms for nursery and kindergarten will have 20 students each and a teacher and assistant. They will have private washrooms where children can learn to use them with the assistant nearby. The new curriculum requires project learning and so we have bought tiny round tables with multi-colored chairs, meant for two but able to have four at group times. There will be lots of manipulative toys to develop dexterity and creativity. Disney curtains to close off the sun between 2-4:00 p.m. while they nap. First and second grade have rectangular tables and class three trapezoidal, all able to be arranged into different groupings.
Two-story buildings will house the upper grade classes. They will also contain the kitchen, dining room, stage, music room on the ground floor and Rotary life skills classrooms upstairs. The stairs outside are fire escape stairs and the ramp from upstairs is for wheelchair children. A lovely amenity is the roofed sidewalk that connects all the classes, offices and library to the dining room. There will be flowers planted along all the sidewalks.
The uniforms are maroon and grey blocks, with maroon sweaters over white blouses with grey knee socks with maroon across the top. Boys will wear grey shorts or long pants. All the sweaters have the school logo on the left shoulder. Mum Jane of our laundry made 55 skirts and Linette (our oldest alumnae) found the sweaters and the community lady to add the logo.
The soccer field behind the dining room is leveled and ready for grass, as is the playground – waiting for slides, swings and seesaws. The outdoor classroom nearby is still being used for the construction company and the basketball court needs to be poured with posts midway for tennis or volleyball nets.
I am certain that God is crazy in love with little orphan children and is pleased that we are extending our outreach and service to the surrounding community. We could not have built the school without the help and prayers from Bower Hill. We would love to have you come visit.
God Bless you and all your ministries to needy children.
Kate