YES Macedonia alumni had already reached out to middle and high school students, the elderly, orphans, and children with disabilities. This April, alumni decided to offer their ideas and enthusiasm to a new demographic: kindergarteners. Drama was the medium, and exposure to new skills and new teaching and learning styles the motivation.

YES alumnae Semra Ameti ‘11, Agjela Gjekanovic ’11, Emilija Pereska ‘11, Tamara Kotevska ’11, Simona Ristovska ‘10, and Hristina Trifunovska ’10 visited a local kindergarten twice a week to first introduce and then organize the kindergarteners into a coherent and enthusiastic production of Anansi and the King’s Drum.

The play itself teaches concern for others, the value of teamwork, and compassion, with warnings of the difficulties that can come should these virtues be ignored. The kindergarteners were, however, perhaps most excited to be on stage in front of their friends and teachers. YES alumna Irina Conevska ’10 painted the young actors and actresses’ faces as they also donned masks prepared for the play, creating a colorful stage.

The performance was immediately followed by an exhibition of animal sculptures created as part of the separate E-Animals project. Aimed at the production of creativity and the reduction of waste, the structures were constructed by Leart Sarachini ’11, Noemi Chausidis ’11, Simon Mitev ’11, Kotevska, Coneska, and Trifunovska out of e-waste that had been collected by YES alumni and friends, as well as from donations from the Metamorphosis foundation. The four animals that had been created not only turned waste into art, but also sparked interest in those witnessing both their creation and display. The project was conducted in cooperation with Ad Hoc Art Skopje and the Skopje Zoo.

YES alumni coordinator and project participant Hristina Trifunovska commented that through “the several workshops that we had in the Educational Center at the Zoo (constructing the e-animals), the ones that we completed after that and during the exhibition in the kindergarten, we hope [we] motivated the parties involved and the community as well, to step up and contribute to themselves and to their community.”

Given the interest and enthusiasm of those involved, we would say both projects were a success!