On a recent Friday, the Para chapter of Lions Club, a global community service organization, organized a dedicated motivation day to support final-year secondary students from across the Para district’s VOJ secondary school network, ahead of their upcoming graduation exams. The full-day event was hosted at the assembly hall of the Emiel Briel Stadium in Lelydorp, a city in northern Suriname, and built on the success of the initiative’s first launch during the 2024/2025 academic year.
Roughly 130 students from three local secondary schools — Mulo Onverwacht, Mulo Onverdacht, and Mulo Paranam — participated in the 2026 event. Organizers provided free bus transportation to and from the venue for all attending students, removing logistical barriers for young people looking to take part. The core of the day was an intensive, hands-on and interactive training session led by Michael Watson, a representative from the Surinamese education non-profit Stichting KIME. During the session, students learned practical, actionable strategies to strengthen their exam preparation, including how to set clear academic goals, adopt time-efficient study methods, build a consistent, personalized study schedule, and manage stress ahead of high-stakes testing.
In remarks to participants and organizers, Lions Club Para president Melvin Mackintosh explained that the motivation day is part of the organization’s long-standing commitment to expanding educational opportunity for students in the Para district. For nearly 20 years, the club has run a separate school recognition program that honors the highest-achieving graduating students from both VOJ and LBO secondary schools across the region. Mackintosh noted that students in rural and suburban districts like Para often face structural barriers and fewer access to academic support resources than their peers in more urbanized areas, making community-led initiatives like this particularly important.
“This event is meant to give students that extra push they need to not only pass their exams, but to rise and rank among the top performers in their cohort,” Mackintosh said. While all Mulo secondary schools in the Para district received invitations to the 2026 motivation day, two schools were unable to attend due to scheduling conflicts with their scheduled mid-term (SO) assessment period. Organizers have already noted that they plan to continue the annual initiative in coming academic years, to expand support for more pre-exam students across the district.