By Simona Ristovska, Alumni Coordinator for Macedonia
First-grader coloring and decorating the mask
Every October, YES alumni host a number of Halloween activities. In honor of the season, YES alumni together with YES Abroad students decided to give the Roma students from Braka Ramiz Hamid elementary school a real Halloween treat. YES alumni Simona Ristovska ’10 and Noemi Chausidis ’11 and YES Abroad students Faber Lynagh, Natalia Mushegian, and Emily Perkins Rock spent two hours with 20 first graders.
Students posing together with YES abroad with their Halloween masks
Alumni first shared the trick or treat tradition with the students. The following activity was making unique masks for Halloween from glitter, feathers, stickers, and colorful papers. At the end of the event the students took photos and scheduled the next visit.
Teacher Valentina Zlatanovska said “Its good to see that the Roma children can be involved in this type of events. People stereotype them that they lack of education when in fact they are really smart and well educated students.”