Maylene’s Hope Foundation extends hand to semi-orphans of Pointe Larue |27 September 2021
Maylene’s Hope Foundation, founded by reigning Miss Seychelles Kelly-Marie Anette, extended its hands to semi-orphans of Pointe Larue secondary school, through its fourth activity held on Saturday.
Considering that the school has the highest number of semi-orphans in Seychelles, according to statistics held by the Ministry of Education, the foundation and partners teamed up for the half-day session, in which the group of students had the opportunity to interact with one another, Ms Anette herself and foundation members, in addition to plunging into a session of creativity and colourful artistic expression.
Ms Anette, who found herself as a semi-orphan from a young age, put together the session with the aim of educating the 12 to 16-year-olds about the importance and relevance of creativity and design, essentials as young adults living in a population characterised by diversity of intelligence.
Following a brief introduction by head teacher of the school Raymonde Lavigne, Ms Anette took to the floor where she shared her personal experience with the semi-orphans, and interacted with them about their goals and aspirations for the future, the challenges they face as semi-orphans and young adults, her tips and tricks for dealing with the loss of a parent.
“Since the foundation launch in July, this is our fourth activity. Our main objectives for this session is to empower and equip the students, semi-orphans to explore new modalities of expression in order to broaden their artistic range and creative experiences and to engage in dialogue with others of the same life stories to build relationships and know that they are not alone in dealing with their traumas,” she said.
“With the artistic session they will eventually at the end be able to demonstrate independent creative vision and fluent understanding of art making techniques, create artistic works under the guidance of art teachers, and provide inspiration and words of encouragement to others and their peers through their testimonies,” Ms Anette stated.
The foundation is dedicated to semi-orphans and orphans in Seychelles, bringing them different types of support or assistance that they require, going further to advocate and proactively push for the empowerment of semi-orphans through educational development and skills acquisition.
Saturday’s session was designed to strengthen art and expression skills, critical thinking skills, artistic growth exploration, crafting skills and communication skills. With the conclusion of the session, the students were each presented with a certificate.
The accompanying photographs show some highlights of Saturday’s activity.
Photos: Jude Morel
