Educational Programme - Day 2, March 21, 2008
Yesterday's educational programme was a blast!
Unfortunately, however, it didn't go quite as planned. It turns out that the school-age children of Ramavaram were going on a field trip to Mamallapuram with a local missionary group. In the future, we hope that the adults of the community will be able to inform us about such scheduling conflicts in advance so we can better plan for them. However, despite this small disappointment, things still went well. The plans that we had scheduled for our this trip were quickly canceled as we tried to find a new activity to do instead with the younger age group that was present. Before we went to the slum, Tatthagath and I picked up a cricket bat and a few balls. Not surprisingly, this turned out to be a great hit with the children. I was surprised to see that the kids there did not even have a cricket bat; instead, they used a simple plank of wood to get their fill of India's national pasttime. A new cricket bat and some balls were a huge excitement for them.
Getting the kids organized took some work, as it did last week. The kids there are, unfortunately, very unruly and they don't care much for instructions or organization. This is made worse by the prospect of cricket. However, with some work, we were able to get the kids into line and each one of them got to try to hit at the ball bowled by Bhavya or Pragnya. This was a lot of fun. Kids who were too small to hold a bat were assisted by Aadhar, Sanjay, and Ravi. Many of the girls, who were not so interested in cricket, instead played with some of our other members. They played name games and other activities which let them get to know our members.
Though we did not achieve our objectives, everybody - Sangam India members and the children alike - had a great, idyllic and wonderful time. The kids are so much fun to spend time with; and issues such as language barriers seem like less and less of an issue with them.
After our activities with the children, we spent some time seeing some medical cases, thanks to Dr. Thinesh. We visited Superraja, who had sustained a fracture to his legs following an accident, and we saw another child who had a severe skin rash. We also stopped by the home of Amudha and Meena, the two girls who we sponsored for their higher education. We got a new uniform for Meena, who had torn hers.
Thanks to everyone who volunteered their time yesterday, and a special thanks to those coming out for their first time: Navya, Bhuvan, Vidyalakshmi and Ravi. We hope to continue the scheduled programme again next week. Stay tuned for more details!
Unfortunately, however, it didn't go quite as planned. It turns out that the school-age children of Ramavaram were going on a field trip to Mamallapuram with a local missionary group. In the future, we hope that the adults of the community will be able to inform us about such scheduling conflicts in advance so we can better plan for them. However, despite this small disappointment, things still went well. The plans that we had scheduled for our this trip were quickly canceled as we tried to find a new activity to do instead with the younger age group that was present. Before we went to the slum, Tatthagath and I picked up a cricket bat and a few balls. Not surprisingly, this turned out to be a great hit with the children. I was surprised to see that the kids there did not even have a cricket bat; instead, they used a simple plank of wood to get their fill of India's national pasttime. A new cricket bat and some balls were a huge excitement for them.Getting the kids organized took some work, as it did last week. The kids there are, unfortunately, very unruly and they don't care much for instructions or organization. This is made worse by the prospect of cricket. However, with some work, we were able to get the kids into line and each one of them got to try to hit at the ball bowled by Bhavya or Pragnya. This was a lot of fun. Kids who were too small to hold a bat were assisted by Aadhar, Sanjay, and Ravi. Many of the girls, who were not so interested in cricket, instead played with some of our other members. They played name games and other activities which let them get to know our members.Though we did not achieve our objectives, everybody - Sangam India members and the children alike - had a great, idyllic and wonderful time. The kids are so much fun to spend time with; and issues such as language barriers seem like less and less of an issue with them.After our activities with the children, we spent some time seeing some medical cases, thanks to Dr. Thinesh. We visited Superraja, who had sustained a fracture to his legs following an accident, and we saw another child who had a severe skin rash. We also stopped by the home of Amudha and Meena, the two girls who we sponsored for their higher education. We got a new uniform for Meena, who had torn hers.
Thanks to everyone who volunteered their time yesterday, and a special thanks to those coming out for their first time: Navya, Bhuvan, Vidyalakshmi and Ravi. We hope to continue the scheduled programme again next week. Stay tuned for more details!
Labels: education, educational programme, perspectives, visits
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