On the final Friday before the break, TISA celebrated Novruz Bayram, the ancient and much-loved holiday in Azerbaijan. We started the day with an assembly with performances, songs and dances from Primary and Secondary students. Afterwards the whole school took part in a khoncha making activity. A khoncha is a tray filled with sweets and cookies and occasionally decorated with a Samani plant at the middle. This year TISA created khonchas for the Azerbaijani Red Crescent Society.

The Azerbaijani Red Crescent Society is a non-profit volunteer service aimed on providing aid and service to those less fortunate. This year TISA decided to deliver the khonchas by hand to the headquarters of the Azerbaijan Red Crescent Society. After all the khonchas had been made by the different classes and grades of TISA. A group of M3 Secondary Students and Primary Student Council Members loaded up a bus full of khonchas, made from dried fruits, pastries and sweets that we had collected over the past few weeks.

From there we travelled to the headquarters of the Azerbaijani Red Crescent Society, where we unloaded the khonchas with the help of some eager students and volunteers. After the khonchas had been set out in a conference room some families of refugees joined us and the volunteers said some words of thanks to the TISA community and the students. We then headed back to TISA to continue the day of celebration. We made a total of 298 khonchas which went to refugee families from Afghanistan, Syria and Pakistan, various homes for the elderly and a disabled children’s centre.