To all of Keren Secondary School former and present,Teachers and Students,

I salute you for coming together and celebrating our successes and memories on July of 2008. This month will remain in our memories as a month celebration.  We are a generation of great warriors who survived the great challenges of 30 years of war and destruction.  For many of us coming together was not new but the new thing and the uniqueness of the moment was very dear and special simply because it was about Keren and Keren Secondary School. Going back in history and bringing all of those beautiful memories and talking and joking about them made us live the past, the present and the aspiration for better future for our children and grand children for generation to come.  I am one of many who had left Keren Secondary School before finishing grade 12.  I lived in Keren for less than three years but those were very special years in and very dear to me.  They are the years that shaped my life forever.  In spite of the curfew, I can say I had fun and made good friends.  I remember going to weddings in Keren Laalai and spent the nights dancing, of course under the protection of some friends from school. After many years, I met my classmates, a number of whom live in Toronto. I had this idea of a reunion for sometime, and managed to persuade my friends to reunite as many as of our schoolmates as we can and don't let the opportunity to slip of our hands.  During the re-union, I met many, perhaps, many of them never remembered me because they were neither my classmates nor had any association with me.  However, the few fun days we spent together in Toronto during the re-union days made all of us, I believe, closer friends.

Let us hope to meet again by next year in a bigger way.  We, in Toronto, have started a great work and handed on the torch to the rest of you to guide us towards another great week of jubilation and celebration. 

Yacoub A. Idris,
Mississauga, Ontario.