"Little Romanians' Christmasin ECO Style"

"Everything we do not have at birth and which we will need when we are grown up is given to us through education," said J. J. Rousseau. In other words, everything is tradition, everything is what we have inherited from our ancestors, and everything depends on how we manage to preserve it and pass it on to future generations.

The Romanian people, settled on these lands for centuries, has inherited a rich spiritual heritage. Its linguistic wealth is found in all the literary genres of folk creation: doinas, ballads, fairy tales and legends, proverbs and sayings, poems and, why not, carols.

Its spiritual wealth encompasses all the creations of craftsmen: ceramics, wooden objects, weavings, stitching and embroidery, pottery, folk costume, as well as traditional dishes.

A great love for Romanian culture, the desire to preserve folk customs and traditions over the centuries, but also regret that too few are those who still try to pass on what has been ours since our forebears, strengthened the conviction of the pre-school teachers at Grădinița cu Program Prelungit nr. 1 Năsăud (Extended Programme Kindergarten No. 1 Năsăud), Pop Oana and Ilies Ana-Maria, to pay greater attention to activities that highlight tradition and folk costume combined with the carols of our forebears.

Within the educational partnership "Romanians in the Land of Năsăud", the teachers involved in this project are running the first workshop, "Little Romanians' Christmas in ECO Style". A workshop that involves making a different kind of Christmas tree, decorated with ornaments made from recyclable materials.

This workshop involved 18 schools from 3 counties – Bihor, Cluj and Bistrița-Năsăud – with 30 groups of pre-schoolers totalling 932 children coordinated by 43 kindergarten teachers, and 17 classes of pupils with 320 schoolchildren coordinated by 17 primary school teachers. In all, 1,240 children were involved in this workshop. This impressive number of participants assures us that the tradition lives on.

The workshop culminated in an online conference attended by the teachers involved together with guests from the Bistrița-Năsăud County School Inspectorate (ISJ BN): Mrs Emiliana Chira, early education inspector; Mrs Violeta Rogozan, lifelong education inspector; Mrs Ligia Urs, head of GPP nr. 1 Năsăud; Mrs Virginia Linul, folk craftswoman, doctor of history and ethnography; Mr Alexandru Canavoiu, president of the "Drumeții Montane" Association; and biology teacher Mr Aurel Pop.

We extend warm wishes regarding the organisation of this workshop and the teachers' participation in it, and on this occasion we invite you to take part, in equally large numbers, in the next workshop, which will run between February and March.

We send you all our good thoughts and wish you blessed holidays, with peace and health alongside your loved ones!

Coordinators: pre-school teachers Pop Oana and Ilies Ana-Maria