Signal Hill ECCE celebrates Divali

Kareece Nelson

The students at the Signal Hill Early Childhood Care and Education centre celebrated the festival of lights, Divali, last Friday with their annual dress-up day. Newsday spoke with assistant teacher Anngine Harracksingh, who has been leading the activity for the last ten years.

She said, "The week ahead of the festivities, the children are taught religious social studies which features Hinduism. The children come dressed in their East Indian wear, the teachers made khurma, pholourie. The children get to interact with deyas and watch the set-up of the bamboo arches where the deyas would be placed."

She said it is truly an interactive session.

"We light the deyas, they dance to Indian music. We also showed them the picture of Mother Lakshmi – the goddess that Hindus worship (at Divali). The students also learned that Divali celebrates good over evil and light over darkness."

The dress-up day activity continues to be an enjoyable experience for both parents and students as the children are exposed to the colourful decorative style of Indian wear. At the school, students also got the opportunity to have mehndi decorations. Mehndi is a henna-based temporary body art often used during important celebrations such as weddings and Divali.