Through the extraordinary effort of Romanian volunteers motivated by the desire to preserve the Romanian language and culture, Romanian School Amsterdam started its activity on 13 November 2016.
On 6 November 2016, the inauguration of the school took place, with an event attended by the Romanian Ambassador to The Hague and a Radio Romania Actualități correspondent, as well as more than 100 Romanians, parents and children. Those present enjoyed a skit organized by the school's teachers, and were delighted with Romanian horeas and songs. The enthusiasm of the participants was overwhelming, as the parents present were happy to see the opening of such a school that they had long wanted, both for themselves and especially for their children.
During 2017 we ran three modules: the first was from January to April, the second from May to July and the third from October to December.
A total of 76 children attended the school in 2017. We started the year in a new, more centrally located and easily accessible building. Since September, we have changed the schedule and moved the Sunday classes to Saturdays, in order to meet the needs of the whole Romanian community.
Main activities of the school in 2017:
Trip to the Amsterdam forest, where we visited the goat farm, ate ice cream, dyed eggs and played "Country, Country, we want soldiers". We attended the Children's Day, an event organized by the Orthodox Church of Aalsmeer together with the ROMPRO Foundation, the Day of the Romanian Schools in the Netherlands, an event organized in The Hague by the Romanian Embassy in the Netherlands. We carried out our activity in the garden of parents Cecilia and Lucian Negoescu. The little ones kneaded and baked bread. The grown-ups competed on the football pitch. We organised workshops for children in Romanian Days Festival.We were present at the Romanian film festival Spotlight in The Hague. We attended the get-together at the Romanian church in Aalsmeer. We sewed, spun wool, knitted, crocheted and baked pasta. While we worked, the church choir delighted us with carols, doinas and a few patriotic songs, worthy of Romania's national day. To highlight the concrete work of our school, we started a new column: School diary. You can see how the children learn a lot of new things, have creative activities, learn Romanian stories and songs.
Also on our page we have published the impressions of parents, who have waited many years for the opening of a Romanian school in Amsterdam and are very happy to hear their children speaking Romanian and learning about our traditions. The importance of such a school in Amsterdam was also underlined during the Romanian Schools Day by Her Excellency, Brândușa Predescu, the Romanian Ambassador in The Hague.
The main workshops were:
-
Romanian language and culture
-
Play and personal development
-
Dwarf workshop
-
Language, culture and civilisation
-
Romanian language for adults
-
Parents' workshop
-
Science (experimental)
We offered on request workshops on:
-
Fine Art
-
Music
-
Romanian folk dance
The school continues its work in 2018. We want to continue to offer Romanian language courses for Romanians in Amsterdam and its surroundings. But we will also try new workshops for children and adults. Among the new things we mention photography and computer workshops for children or creative writing, theatre therapy, photography etc. for adults.
