FESTIVE SPIRIT: The crowd at the festival. Inset: ONE BEAT: ASD students during a choir performance.Photo by Najeer Feroke
By Anand Holla
The chirpy air of collective celebration was unmistakable. All through the spacious campus of the American School of Doha (ASD), kids, parents, teachers and everyone in between, revelled in its signature annual event on Friday.
The Friendship Festival, which has now completed its 17th year, hosted more than 4,000 people in the five hours — 12pm to 5pm — it runs for. While every corridor, hall and cafeteria space of the school throbbed with the young energy of children and their excited parents, the sight of people lounging about in the open lawn, soaking up the sun on a wind-swept afternoon, while the children goofed about summed up the mood of the festival.
Featuring everything from live entertainment, games, prizes, shopping, and of course, a wide variety of food, on an entry fee of QR25, the Friendship Festival, presented by the Parent Teacher Association (PTA), seeks to promote “community spirit, friendship, awareness and co-operation.”
At the VIP Lounge, where much of the staff could be seen frequenting, Dr Deborah Welch, Director of ASD, looks rather pleased.
“In a school that has a 26-year-long history, this is indeed a tradition that we feel very strongly about,” she says, “The name of the festival telegraphs our message to the community. It’s the day when we open up our doors to the entire community in Qatar. The fact that there’s something here for every age is what we want this festival to communicate.”
That sure is a highlight of the festival. For kids craving some fun in the sun, there were a bunch of carnival-type games such as Conk the Crow, or throwing plastic rings at a stack of cola bottles, apart from the inflatable slides and bouncy castles, while the teenagers had a swell time with Human Foosball and the grown-ups tried a variety of cuisine on offer.
Welch says this festival could not be accomplished without an entire year of work put in by volunteer groups; helmed by Inge Hansen, PTA Festival Chairperson, and Laura Ford, PTA President.
Hansen, who is in her fourth year of orchestrating the project and has 12 sub-committees under her, says that a great number of volunteers pitch in to make the event happen.
“The sub-committees I have are all volunteered by parents, who step forward the moment we open up the school and they work hard through the year,” she says, “We also get around 100 military volunteers from the US Army and Air Force bases here, who pool in their efforts. And certainly all the students eagerly wait for this, so they can volunteer and work with the games. Everything really comes together.”
Ford seconds Hansen. “As part of the PTA, we have many events that reflect a lot about the spirit of the school. This, though, is the biggest and most important one for several reasons,” says Ford.
“For one, it’s our welcome to our community, both of school and outside it. We get to provide a day of fun for everyone that’s part of American School, and also for the outside community,” she explains, “Also, all our students are concerned about contributing to the community and getting their service hours.”
The nearly two-decade-long tradition has been a major fundraiser for the PTA of the ASD. Welch says, “All the proceeds made go to the school. Every year, we sit with the PTA, and the PTA asks us: What is it that the school needs to further enhance the education of our students? So, we have had phenomenal contributions made by the PTA; from a two-story classroom of a black box theatre to building an outdoor pool, or getting in playground equipment at our elementary school. We try to ensure that each division in the school gets covered.”
Elated by the massive turnout, Ford hopes to raise between QR200,000 to QR300,000, this year. “It’s getting tougher to get corporate sponsors, and to make this event bigger and better, our expenses go up. But that’s all part of it,” says Ford, “Last year, we managed to raise a little more than QR300,000.”
That’s why the ASD administration is all the more grateful to its sponsors such as Maersk Oil Qatar, Exxon Mobil Qatar, Inc., Weill Cornell Medical College Qatar, Occidental Petroleum of Qatar Ltd., Schlumberger Oilfield Services, Writer Relocations, RasGas, and Gulf Agency Company, among others, for backing such an indispensable community occasion of the year.
What’s also remarkable is how the festival, over the years, has helped in forging healthy parent-teacher camaraderie. “The parents and teachers here share such a good relationship that if you were to ask any parent what they thought about the school or liked most about it, their answer would be a sense of community.”
That seems to be an accurate assessment. One of the parents present at the Festival, when asked, said, “It’s an amazing atmosphere here. It’s truly the culmination of the good energies of the whole year.”
Welch says, “In the end, what is a school about? It’s about the students. We all have a higher purpose which is to have the very best education possible for our students. We can’t do that without having a strong partnership with the parents. They have to believe and trust in us, and vice versa. And that’s how you create a school culture where that respect is the foundation.”
Welch, Hansen and Ford credit this “partnership with parents” in the form of many volunteer groups such as PTA, the Booster Club for athletic teams, or The Arab Mothers’ Association (AMA), in taking the ASD’s success story to the next level. “They are a part of us and we are a part of them,” Welch points out.
Given the vast range of activities and goodies on offer, one would be hard-pressed to pick the ultimate highlight of the festival. While the crowd cheered for the parents who got together to perform live music, the Air Force band and student choirs won many hearts, too.
At the entrance, a tent set up by the AMA celebrated Qatari culture and hospitality, while a dizzying number of stalls bustling with curious shoppers filled large halls and corridors of the campus. On sale were paintings, handicrafts, art works, carpets, beauty accessories, clothes, jewellery, books, and all sorts of knickknacks.
Alexi Muzame from Kenya, who has been a regular vendor at the festival for 15 years on a trot, showcased an impressive collection of artefacts and handicrafts sourced from her native land. “Since I have always taken this table,” she said, throwing a long look at her stall packed with beautiful wooden showpieces and soapstone articles bearing ethnic motifs, among others, “people always come here looking for me. It’s a great festival to be part of.”
Although the reasons are different, Ford, too, loves being part of the fest. “I have been doing this on the community for five years and in my current role for three. Even though I have experienced it before, it always surprises me,” says Ford, “At 12pm, when the gates open, I look out and the field starts to fill up, and I feel, okay, we did it again.”
Hansen nods along. “I have a 10-year-old daughter. She has been counting down for the last 10 days,” says Hansen, “I met an elementary teacher who said that all the kids just can’t wait for the Friendship Festival to happen. It’s such a big thing for them. And that’s the best compliment we can get — that the students are so happy.”
At the ASD, there are students of 72 nationalities. This, too, adds to the richness of the experience, feels Hansen. “So many different countries means different people from different cultures coming together and working it out. You may see differences because, of course, some people might not play well in the beginning. But very easily, there’s so much positive energy in our school that one overcomes all those things,” she says.
Welch adds, “If we can’t come together and do it here with students from 72 nationalities, representing in a sense the diversity of the world for the children, we can’t do it anywhere.”
“But we do it,” says Ford, “And we do it every day.”
