PAPI Griviţa, a „school of culture” that doesn’t go on holiday

05.07.2011

RECL Griviţa, in Galaţi, is currently organising several cultural activities aiming to rekindle the pupils’ passion for literature, arts and the history of their birthplace, at the same time stimulating their interest in getting to know and preserving local traditions and customs. The three institutions that form the RECL (PAPI, Library and the Secondary School) are cooperating for this campaign.

“The most important of our objectives are promoting the experiences of children and teachers in a multidisciplinary context, the bibliographical research, stimulating pupils’ interest for culture, traditions and local customs, for research and creating practical works and cultivating a respective for culture. These events aim to support the linguistic diversity through poetry, as each country’s culture is identified through its poets. Each time a cultural event takes place, the pupils of the Griviţa Secondary School come with great pleasure to the Public Access Point to Information (PAPI) and look up information, read poems that are not to be found on the shelves of the local library”, Griviţa RECL manager Gina Geică says.

A full agenda

The activities are regularly organised at PAPI, both during the school year and during holidays. The agenda takes into account the anniversaries of important writers or celebrating various events on the UNESCO calendar. For instance, on March 20th, when the “International Poetry Day” is being celebrated, PAPI organised an event called “Homage to poetry”, dedicated to poetry and poets. On April 23rd, during the “International Day of the Book and Copyright”, PAPI Griviţa organised an event dedicated to the universe of books and reading, “Beautiful book, praised be your author!”, organised by RECL manager Gina Geică and librarian Gerogeta Maruş. On May 9th, on the Day of Europe, the event “We are Europeans too” took place; focus was put on pupils debating the present and future European perspectives. The cultural calendar included presentations of the works created by the greats of Romanian culture, on their birthdates. For instance, on November 5th, when 130 years from the birth of Mihail Sadoveanu were celebrated, a literary bee called “Sadoveanu – A mountain of Romanian literature” was organised. On January 15th the event “Eminescu”, celebrating 152 years from the birth of the national poet, was organised, while March 1st was dedicated to Ion Creangă, as it was the 174th anniversary of his birth. Other such events were organised on the National Day and Europe Day.

“These activities are the results of teamwork, including PAPI, Library and School. Together, we created very interesting cultural events. We marked events of significance in the cultural life of the Romanian people; children themselves came up with ideas of topics which they wanted to approach”, librarian Georgeta Maruş says.

Pages of local history

PAPI Griviţa was also the main organiser of a project called “Pages of local history”, having as partners the Griviţa City Hall, the local library, the Galaţi History Museum, the Mixed Museum in Tecuci, the “V.A. Urechia“ Library Galaţi, the Galaţi Education Board, the school in Slobozia Conachi, the Arts and Crafts School in Griviţa, the School Group in the Tudor Vladimirescu commune, the school in M. Kogălniceanu and three schools in Galaţi: „Nichita Stănescu”, „Nicolae Bălcescu” and „Dimitrie Cantemir”.

A first event organised in the project was dedicated to knowing the architectural monuments in Galaţi. Since some of these buildings, like the “Simion Gheorghiu” and the “Serfiotti” House, are almost in ruins, pupils turned their visit into action by trying to focus attention on the degradation of several historical buildings and make authorities pay attention, through posters like “Save the heritage of Galaţi”. As part of the project, the Griviţa Arts and Crafts School presented the personalities of playwright Victor Ion Popa, born in Griviţa in 1985, and Dimitrie Petre Anastasiu.

Similar cultural activities in KEP

More and more communities that are part of the Knowledge-Based Economy Project have PAPI centres that focus on improving education in schools and kindergarten. In PAPI Nufăru, Tulcea County, pupils are trying to create web pages and publish articles on the Internet, in order to create a portal for all schools in the county. Also, PAPI Tg. Frumos organises for preschoolers lessons about great personalities of Romanian literature, and PAPI Berchişeşti, Suceava, is preoccupied not just to organise IT trainings, but also to make sure pupils learn history and geography.

PAPI Ariniş, in Maramureş, organised a cultural event dedicated to the memory of Mihai Eminescu, during which children presented the biography or the Romanian poet, after researching at PAPI. In Baru, Hunedoara, employees were involved in organising and promoting the Commune’s Feast.

Pupils in Zlatna watch documentaries at PAPI

PAPI Baru part of cultural and sporting events

Eminescu, honored by the kids at Arinis General School