Educational Programme - Day 6

Today was the sixth day of our Educational Programme, and overall it went well. Today we had a lot of kids getting involved and we were able to reach our objectives that we planned.

Once we got the children together, we got started. We decided not to use the laundry facility because most of the kids were already in the field and it would have been too difficult to get them to come. The first part of of our programme was to get the kids together and to teach them about pollution and about keeping their environment clean. Mathangi and Vivek did a great job telling the kids about the importance of using clean water and about taking daily baths. They also emphasized the importance of throwing one's trash away in a designated place.

The second part of our programme was the continuation of the "When I Grow Up..." programme that we started on the third day of our educational programme. Having previously discussed doctors and teachers, we continued our programme with a discussion of policemen. Safwan, one of our members, dressed up as a policeman and told the kids about what they do. A number of kids were excited about this and wanted to be policemen and women. He told them about the importance of following the law and that it took a lot of studying, physical exercise and hard work to be a in the police. We hope that were able to inspire a few of them about this line of work. In addition, many of the kids enjoyed getting a chance to try on the police uniform afterwards.

The final part of our project was done by Alex. He taught the kids how to make paper airplanes. This activity was a hit with the kids and they had a lot of fun learning how to do it. It also helped them to learn how to follow directions and it gave us a chance to interact with the kids one-on-one. We all had a lot of fun doing this project and we hope we can do something like it again.

We'd like to thank people for coming out for their first time today. Vivek, Manoj and Neil were all very helpful and we hope to see more of them in the future.

This concludes the first part of our educational programme. Many of us will be going home for the month of May. We do have plans to continue the program next month with the people that will be in Chennai. If you can help volunteer for our project some time in May it would be most appreciated, and we really hope you will contact us about this. We look forward to coming back in June with a lot of fresh energy.

Click here to see the rest of the photos from today's trip.