Even if the normal schools’ vacation started one month ago, the attendance of the children in IBC Children’s Social Centers established in Bam is high. The children in Bam don’t do much in their vacations (except the ones who have to work together with their parents in the dates gardens out of Bam), especially this year when they cannot ask from their parents for such a thing, when they lost everything they got as belonging and, most sad, even the loved ones of their families or friends…

So on the 9^th of July, in a Friday when is the official week end and the religious rest day, 60 children from the Centers in the camps Qom1, Isfahan2 and Shehrdari got up in a bus together with their teachers and IBC staff and went for a picnic day to the dates gardens of Nakhlestan / Arg-e-Jadid, near Bam. The children were accompanied by the psychologists Athareh Madjidian and Fardin Shadab and the instructors Nusret Afganinejat, Leyla Nayebzade, Azar Jozan and Sobhe Nikmehr. IBC staffs who joined the children and learned that day how to smile like them were Padideh, Saeed, Mehul, Kiran, Muhammed and Ana.  

The children’s ages who came to the picnic were from 6 up to 13 and, because they were supposed to be unaccompanied by their parents forward to socialize better with other children, they broth to their teachers letters of permission from their families or tutors, proving one more time the trust in IBC staff working with their children. And this must be considered an important step, as the trauma and the fear of the parents for having their precious children, who survived the tragic earthquake, away from them is still difficult to overcome… And one may have to see the “permission letters” received from the parents of their tutors, some of them signed with their fingerprints, some of them with colored decorations, some of them with greetings or beautiful remarks about the teachers

The children amazed everybody with their capacity of learning, the energy and unlimited power of smile, singing and playing the entire day. They had their joint chorus (for the first time with children from different IBC Centers from different camps who didn’t know each other before) accompanied by their psychologist, Dr.Shadab, who played the violin. They made new friendships, danced and sang until the last stop of the bus near their containers. This day was a proof of the fact that the children have a special power inside of their beautiful hearts and can teach us always how to be happy and how to treasure life… But today a group of children from Isfahan1 site came to IBC field office door asking when they were going to go to excursion to Nakhlestan as the others, so we are already planning for them and the children from Qom2 to offer a summer day fun and friendship just near the sunny Bam.