I am very proud and happy to report that Jelena Angelovski was our guest in London a couple of weekends ago: On Saturday, 12th October we organised an event to promote “Mika”, Jelena’s first novel. At this event, we also talked about bilingualism and heritage language. On Sunday, 13th October, Jelena held workshops for the students of “St. Sava” Sunday school. The workshops revolved around the novel “Mika” and azbuka (Serbian Cyrillic alphabet).
THE IDEA
My idea to invite Jelena to London and introduce Mika to our people and our children emerged for two reasons. Firstly, I was inspired by the book. I firmly believe “Mika” is a novel of great quality that deserves to be heard of, especially among our people who live abroad. Second, I had a need (in fact, I will always have this need) to increase the exposure of our children who live abroad to our language. Here in London, English is everywhere around us. Significant time and effort need to be invested to organise opportunities for our kids to hear, use and love our language and our alphabet.
BOOK PROMOTION AND CONVERSATION ON BILINGUALISM AND HERITAGE LANGUAGE
On Saturday, Jelena presented her novel “Mika” to the audience at the Bishop Nikolaj Hall. Through the excerpts from the novel she read, the audience learnt about the problem the main character, Mika, faces. He wonders “Who am I?”, after his best friend tells him he is “No one”. Mika is a boy from the Balkans who is growing up abroad and one of the main topics in the novel is his search for identity.
A short conversation between Jelena and me followed. We talked about bilingualism, but also biliteracy (focusing on the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet) and biculturalism. We also touched upon the topic of identity, the role of an individual, as well as community in the preservation of the heritage language, alphabet and culture. Questions from the audience followed.
WORKSHOPS FOR THE CHILDREN
On Sunday, Jelena held workshops for the students of the “St. Sava” Sunday school. The workshops were entitled “Moja azbuka”. Activities included group acting out of one excerpt from the book, solving activity sheets and a team effort to create “their own azbuka”. The students actively participated and contributed to the workshops.
Since everyone present at the workshops visibly enjoyed being involved, the workshops lasted for two hours (instead of one, initially planned, hour). Jelena kept the children interested, engaged and active. It was a great pleasure to observe how children enjoy a different approach to learning, exposure to and acquisition of our beautiful language.
THE FUTURE
I sincerely hope these were the first events in the series that will continue to provide the contact of our children who live away from our country with our language.
THANK YOU
I am very grateful to the Serbian Orthodox Church in London as well as the Serbian Sunday school who stood by me in my idea to organise events with Jelena. The project we wrote was supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia, Department for collaboration with diaspora and Serbian people in the region. Last but not least, big thanks to our friends from Audiomanija for their support, that made the event on the 12th October complete.