Zanzikids Party

The 2010 Zanzikids day and party were a great success, and it was much enjoyed by all present. It was held in the Ben Bella Hall on the 3rd of July. We started preparing in the morning, and all preparations went well. Bystanders, who did not know what was going on, were very curios to see what was going to happen.

The party started at 4:00pm, with MC Jaku and Asha on the mic, to welcome all the guests and kids. The party was even greater than last year's zanzikids day, partly due to the new venue and partly due to the experience we got from previous years.

We had three primary schools who had participated with the project this year, and for the party more children from other schools and the neighborhood were invited. The MC's divided them into two groups, the first one went inside the prepared screening room to watch the movie and the second group remained outside to see and participate in other activities.

We had different games like henna and face painting, mask making, drawing, Kapueira, a dancing competitions. Besides the traditional activities the four film teachers from Holland introduced some Dutch games like Zaklopen (walking with bags), Spijkerpoepen (bottles and nails competition), Koekhapen (eating cookies tied on a rope) and Eieren lopen (walking with eggs on a spoon and see who comes to the end of the field the first).

All games were lead by Zanzibits students and staff. After getting a winner from each game, we had a ceremony where all of them got a prize, and once the games were finished, we played the final game, where all winners competed in an egg-walking race. The winner was Ali from, from the Starnet Academy School.
Meanwhile, inside, all the kids got a chance to see the movies they had made previously, during the Zanzikids project. There was a big screen in room, and all the animations and kids' movies were screened inside. All of them very happy and impressed with the result of their labor, and some of them, who did not participate in the creation of the animation sequences, were very eager to do something like it, should they get another chance.

Afterwards, it was the time for the Stone Town Kapueira Club to show off their acrobatic skills and lead up the kids dancing competition. At the end of the party, everyone was very happy and interested to see the exceptional ability of the kids.

In the evening, it was the time for the Zanzibits team (staffs and students) to see the movies made by the Zanzibits students. There were four of them, and they were called: My Mama, Hardness of Life, Desire and Street Children. Each of these movies presented the views of part of the life of our students.
All in all, it was a great and successful day. We had good feedback from the audience, and most of them commented that the party was nice and they were very impressed. They suggested that next year we should increase the amount of activities, as they loved the games so much, especially the Dutch ones and also to explore more kid's talents. The day after the party, there was a broadcast on the Television channel of Zanzibar (TVZ), whom we thank a lot for the time they took to cover the event. Thank you all, at TVZ.

Finally, we would like to thank all of you that have made this day possible. We would like to thank the HKU and the HKU-ers who have worked so hard to make this possible. Then we would like to specially thank Tessa and Remke of the Taartrovers for putting so much effort and passion into the Zanzikids project. Then we would like to thank all guests, sponsors, students, parents teachers and staff for their help.

See you next year for the 2011 version of Zanzikids!!!