You would definitely feel this if you participated in the 1 day Sugathi programme at Samskar Ashrama Pathsala, Varni, Andhra Pradesh on 28th April'09. Not just the children, but the volunteers and staff members also enjoyed the day to the fullest. For the children, every activity was educative, playful and exciting and finally every moment was memorable.
To begin with, here is a brief geographical description of Varni. Varni is a village located at a distance of 35 Km from Nizamabad, A.P. (Nizamabad is 170 Km away from Hyderabad and it takes 3-4 hours to reach from Hyderabad).
A team of 7 Sugathi volunteers viz.,Pavan, Venkat, Srinath, Wazeed, Samar, Shabana and Satish reached Samskar campus on 27th April night. Accommodation was arranged on the campus itself for the night stay. After having lengthy but exciting discussions till the midnight, we have chalked out the detailed plan for the activities.
Next day morning around 8:45 AM, we reached Hostel Mess to take breakfast with children. When warmth and affection are reciprocated, how much time will take for people to get closer? So, by the time we finished breakfast, the children became very good friends to us. When, we promised them a very exciting day with lot of fun and learning, they were on cloud nine. But their only apprehension was whether their HM would cancel the regular classes or not :)
After finishing the breakfast, we joined Dr. Kompalli HSS Sundar, Program director, Samskar for a discussion. He gave a brief introduction to the history of Samskar, its past achievements and future plans. Then he introduced us to Ms. Anila Kumari, HM. She took us to 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th standards to give our introduction to kids. Finally, when she came to know that we both knew each another, she was pleasantly surprised. When she announced that Sugathi activity would start after sometime, the children were literally shouting out joy with sparkling eyes.
The activities planned for the day were general quiz, drawing, cultural activities, treasure hunt and games. The children were around 90 in number and were made into two groups. Children from 6th and 7th standards formed one group (around 40 children) and those from 8th and 9th standards formed the other one. (Around 50 children)
Srinath, Pavan and Satish undertook the quiz competition for children from 8th and 9th standards. There were 9 teams in the quiz. Questions covering general science, geography, GK and sports were asked. The competition was very stiff and all the teams performed very well. Samar, Shabana, Venkat and Wazeed parallelly ran drawing activity for 6th and 7th std children. The theme given was "My world". One thing is obvious. Every child has subtler observation and better artistic eye than we have. These kids are no exception.So, naturally, the final outcome of the drawing activity was wonderful. You can see the pics of some those drawings yourself in our Picasa web album.
With this we finished our activities for the first session and got ready for lunch by 12:30 AM. The children were very eager to know the activities planned for the post-lunch session. We assured them more fun filled activities in the next session. While taking lunch, Wazeed, Venkat and Samar started discussion on treasure hunt. Venkat with the help of Mr.Madhu and Mr.Siddeshwar, drew the campus layout on paper. Then Wazeed, Venkat and Samar went ahead to have a look at the places to keep the clues. In the mean time, Srinath and Satish started the drawing activity for the 8th and 9th standard children. 8th standard children were given the theme “Environmental Protection”. Before the activity was started, we had an interactive session with them covering the same topic. The theme given to the 9th standard children was “How do you visualize your village after 10 years?” There was an interactive session on this topic too. We also asked the children from both the standards to list a few points explaining the theme and their work.
While this activity was on its way, Pavan and Shabana grouped 6th and 7th standard children for singing. Children enjoyed this part very well. Then Pavan planned some team games for them. This went on till 3:30 PM. By that time, Venkat and Co were ready to start Treasure Hunt. They explained the 6th and 7th standard children the rules of the game. As soon as they finished the explanation, children were on the run. The drawing activity got over by 4:00 PM. These elder kids displayed maturity by bringing their social consciousness into the drawings. Some of the 9th standard children visualized Concrete- Cement roads, rain water harvesting methods, better drainage, bus shelters and parks with fountains. Some drew zoo, boating parks too. 8th standard children were equally good showing air pollution, water pollution and conservation of trees etc in the drawings. Their explanations were also quite meaningful and relevant.
After this activity, all the children were assembled in the playground for some more games. By 5 PM we were done with all activities and the children took the resting position. Then we invited Dr. Sundar and other Samskar staff for the closing ceremony. Srinath initiated the discussion on the daylong events, learnings from each activity. He asked one child from each class to come forward to share his/her feelings. The children were very happy as they have learnt many new things and many games to play. We have given a complimentary gift to all the children present on that day. We have winded up the day with photo sessions with all the children and Samskar staff. It was 6.30 PM and we packed our bags. As our vehicle started to move out of the campus many children were running behind the vehicle waving at us.
Though our stay was for a few hours we feel that Sugathi has found a special place in the children’s hearts. We bagged some wonderful and cherishable moments though it was hard to say goodbye to them.
This is the first programme conducted by Sugathi outside Bangalore. We are proud to say that it is a moment of triumph. We are sure this success inspires Sugathi to spread out.
Side lights:
- We all wore T-shirts bearing the name Sugathi, caption “Welfare Through Education” and blog address.
- Dr. Sundar presented books authored by Sri.Lavanam as well as himself to all the volunteers.
- An interesting thing was that though we took nearly 2 hours to “design” the clues and routes for the treasure hunt, the children could crack it in less than 15 mins !!! It was their campus and they were the numero uno.
