There’s always time for Children.

While most Friday afternoons feature wrapping up with work quickly, so you can get out early and enjoy the weekend; our Friday afternoon was focused on some much needed community service.

We headed out to EÇEV (Ege Çağdaş Eğitim Vakfı) which is a school for under privileged children up in the hilly region of Izmir.

We met with the head of the school and after a quick tour of the facilities, she explained to us how a number of children move to Izmir from other parts of Turkey due to migration and are often challenged with social exclusion and inequality of opportunity in terms of education. I have to admit the facilities being provided, the class rooms, the art studio, the library were exactly what makes a child want to stay in school.

When we met with the children all aged between 8 and 14, we decided a fun way to introduce ourselves would be to show them pictures of the countries we belong to and have them guess.

They must really excel in geography and cultural studies as they sure knew a lot about where we came from. While they introduced themselves, we also asked them to draw pictures of what they aspired to be; and we found a bunch of upcoming teachers, football players, doctors, singers, translators and even a fashion designer and a pilot.

So, to keep these bright minds occupied we decided to challenge them with some fun but interactive team building and problem solving games… and then onto more fun with some dancing and lots of photographs to remember each other!

It was heartwarming to see how warm and friendly and confident they were. I have no doubt that every single one of them will excel at whatever they aspire to be.