See the World with CU Daycare

The Child Development Center at Concord is a daycare for children from the surrounding area. There are many children of Concord students, professors, other staff members and local schools. Most of the teachers have been working there for many years. The daycare center has an international country presentation, so I interviewed Olga Novikova, who is a manager of this program.

    She and Keisha Jeffrey, who is one of the teachers at the daycare and has Belizean roots, started the project “A Trip Around the World” three years ago. The idea to start the project came to her when she realized that nothing much was happening at the daycare compared to other schools in the area, which always invite international students.

    The great thing about this program is that lots of international school students speak about their countries. Children in the daycare center can have an opportunity to meet new people from different countries and to learn about different cultures. Novikova also wanted to have some international input herself, since she is from Russia. She was the first to do a cultural presentation about her country and then she started to invite her friends from different countries to talk about theirs. Keisha Jeffrey has helped her a lot with organizing the project, and has also done a presentation herself, talking about her own cultural background in Belize.

    This program helps children to get to know different people of various backgrounds with different cultures and gives them a better knowledge about foreign countries themselves. Now they can easily find any country on the map.  Also, she said that it makes her happy when they have students coming from the same country twice and children already remember some things from a previous presentation.

    Novikova said that the goal of the project was to help the children at daycare become more open-minded and tolerant to other cultures. She said that, whenever she imagines that after daycare the children go home and have a lot to tell to their parents about their cultural experiences with international students, it makes her very happy.

    So far, they have had cultural presentations from Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Tunisia, Pakistan, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, China, Thailand, Nepal, India, Germany, Albania, Russia, Armenia, Moldova, Brazil, and Belize. Many international students bring their traditional food to share with kids, wear their traditional clothes to represent their countries, and bring souvenirs like magnets or key chains. They also prepare an activity to do with the children, like a creative project or a game.

I asked her how come she became a manager, and she said that she chose daycare as her Bonner work placement. She is a Bonner Scholar and she is a volunteer there. At first, she helped children with homework and just played different games with them. Then, after she organized the project and when it became pretty successful, she became the leader of it.

She added:  “I would like to invite all international students to participate in my project “A Trip Around the World”. It is a wonderful experience, where you will connect with the American children and share a part of your culture! It is just about an hour of your free time that you could devote to your presentation at daycare and you will be much appreciated! We are still traveling all around the world and would like to visit more countries! If you are interested in participating, please contact me by facebook or e-mail: novikovao19@mycu.concord.edu! We will be happy to have you! We would like to thank all students, who have already done their cultural presentations during the previous years! They were fantastic!”