HALLI SUMMER CAMP- THE FINALE`

The preparations:

A closing ceremony was probably never in our agenda when we started the summer camp. But after the first few days, looking the enormous amount of talent and zeal in the kids of Hadinaru and considering the fact that the volunteers were all game for something much bigger, we decided to have a grand function on the last day. As told in the previous entry, preparations for the event had begun long back and just a few final arrangements were left. The ceremony was scheduled to start at 10 am and we reached there as early as 8.00 !! Setting up the stage, the mikes and the generator, one final practice for all, costumes for the dance-participants, and it was soon 10:00! We were actually surprised and pleased to see that almost all the guests had arrived on time. The list of guests included some prominent personalities of the village who were mostly politicians.

The inauguration:

The program, anchored by Satish and Vidya, kick-started with an invocation song by one of the girls who attended the summer camp. Our Ramesh Sir then welcomed all the guests and soon the event was inaugurated by the Chief Guest by lighting the lamp. My report was next, where I was supposed to talk about AF in general and about the summer camp in particular. I was all set with a ppt that I'd prepared, containing some selected photos of all the activities that we had during the camp. But unfortunately, due to lack of sufficient light near the stage, it was hardly visible so I had to manage the report without it. But the guests were happy to know the kinds of activities we had, and the kind of response we got from the kids.

The speeches and the feedback:

The report was followed by a series of short speeches by all the dignitaries on the dais (they were probably 6-7 of them). In between them, we had another very interesting episode. As I said in the previous entry, we had asked all the kids to write their opinion about the camp and after reading them, we were so happy that we wanted few of them to speak it out on stage during the closing event. So we had 5-6 of them coming on stage and telling their experiences of the camp. Well, experience is a small word, as they actually shared their emotions, telling us how we became a part of their lives during those 3 weeks, how they learnt so much from us, how they got inspired from us, and how they would miss us after the camp got over. It was truly an emotional and memorable moment for all of us and I regard it as the peak of achievement of AF Mysore so far!

The prizes and the mementos:

Mementos were given away to all the children who had attended a considerable part of the camp, which included a pen-stand and few pens and pencils. Special prizes were given to the winners of the painting competition that was held on Day2, which included a few books. At the end of it, we also gave a special memento to the school, which was a huge wall clock with the name of Aashayein Foundation imprinted on it. This was our way of expressing gratitude to the school authorities for all their co-operation and also our way of leaving behind something permanent for the school in our memory. The clock was immediately put up inside one of the rooms in the school, and I guess it will stay there for a long time to come.

The "THANK YOUs":

The vote-of-thanks was presented by my mother, Mrs. Asha Manohar, who was incidentally born in Hadinaru and who was the reason behind we choosing that place for our summer camp. She thanked all the guests who'd taken time to attend the function. She also thanked all the non-AF members who'd taken so much interest to take various classes for during the course of the camp. In the end, she also thanked all of us volunteers (in spite of me strictly asking her to remove that part) and it turned out to be quite a happy moment for all of us.

The cultural events:

Finally the most awaited part of the program. We started off with the group song and as I said earlier, we almost had the whole musical band for it. Me playing the keyboard was probably a surprise element, even for the volunteers. Mr. Chandrappa was on the guitar, Vidyadhar on congo and Abdul on drums. Around 7-8 girls from the camp had come up for this and they sang "Hachchevu Kannadada Deepa", which is a beautiful song written by Kuvempu.

The song was soon followed by a group dance by around 15 girls who danced to "Dhim tha dare" from Thakshak and "Araluva hoovugale" from a Kannada movie "My Autograph". The dance was cheered with a loud applause by the audience and it was really heartening to see the girls dancing so well, having had so less time to practice for it, all thanks to Harshini and Seetha, their dance instructors.

If the girls had completely stolen the show with their song and the dance, it was now turn of the boys. Directed by Ramesh Sir, the boys first presented a short skit which was based on a story of Tenali Rama. It was very well enacted by the little boys and left the audience in stitches.

The final act was the pyramid formations. Headed by Mac, the boys displayed some unique formations on the ground and were again treated with a loud applause. Thus ended the exciting and eventful cultural program.

And finally ...

As usual, lunch was served by us after the program ended, but this time, not just for the kids of the camp but for everyone who attended the function. And soon it was time to say goodbye. It was a pleasant surprise when the children started taking our autographs and even took our phone numbers so that they could keep in touch with us. The words of gratitude that they expressed while leaving were seriously priceless and it actually turned out to be a pretty emotional moment for all of us. At the same time, it was also a moment of celebration with a sense of achievement. The summer camp was the first big event that AF Mysore had taken up and I take pride in saying that it turned out to be much more successful than expected.

With more challenges to face and more important projects to be taken up, the summer camp was a huge morale booster for all of us and certainly a feather in the cap of AF Mysore. Hoping to have many such events in future. As Jay always keeps saying, the Aashayein caravan shall go on.

Click here to see all the pics of the closing ceremony !!

To know more about Aashayein Foundation, visit our official blog.

HALLI SUMMER CAMP- A Detailed Report- Part 3

Day 5: 8th May '10

By the end of the 2nd week, we had decided to have a closing ceremony on Day 7, where we would invite a lot of people from the village and make the kids exhibit their talents. So this formed the major part of the schedule for Day 5 and 6- giving practice to the children for these events.

Day 5 started off with yet another useful session, by Mr. Raghu, who again happened to be a renowned speaker who spoke to the village kids about personality development. The kids were given some basic tips about how to improve concentration while studying, how meditation helps, etc. He also gave them a live demo of meditation and asked them to repeat it and advised them to follow the same throughout their lives. He also divided the children into various groups where each of them was asked to share his/her achievements to the group, no matter how small the achievements were. We volunteers were also divided to monitor each of these groups and applaud the achievements of the kids. It was a highly unique activity intended to make the kids realize their own potential and work towards it.
This was followed by a brief but useful session on cleanliness and hygiene by Seetha and Vidya where they were told about the hazards of unhealthy environment and the importance of cleanliness in their village. At the end of it, the children were asked to clean up their school premises and they willingly did it with a lot of interest. As a reward, they were served with some yummy food as usual.
After lunch, it was time for practice! The children were divided into 4 groups based on the their choices of events- Group Dance, Group Song, Skit and Pyramid. Ms. Harshini, a dance teacher by passion, was called in, and aided by Seetha and a few others, she quickly struck a chord with the kids and thus began the dance practice. I was given the responsibility of training the kids for the group song and fortunately and unexpectedly, I got the help of a few professional musicians from LnT who came to Hadinaru with all their instruments(drums, guitar) and thus began an exciting and challenging song practice. Similarly, Ramesh Sir took up skit and Mac took up pyramid and very soon, all of us were immersed in practicing for the big event. In the meantime, the other volunteers started making all sorts of planning and arrangements for the event and finally at around 2.30 pm, we chose to call it a day.

Day 6: 9th May '10

Well, technically this was the last day of the summer camp and we tried to fit in as much as possible. Jayanth started off with another session on computers, but this time mainly centered on the internet. He spoke briefly about the history of internet and how it has gained importance in the recent past. The children also learnt how to send mails and also generally about how they can use the net for some of their needs.

On the previous day, all the children who attended the camp were compulsorily asked to write a short feedback, giving us their opinion about the summer camp. So the next half an hour went in collecting the feedback from them and we reading them. This was by far THE BEST part of the summer camp for us as we had certainly not expected the kids to write it so beautifully. It was really hard to choose the best among them as all of them had written it wonderfully and it was really touching for all of us to hear such nice words written about us. Those feedbacks will be treasured by AF Mysore for a very long time to come.

After this, for the very last session of the summer camp, we had few volunteers from Columbia Asia Hospital, who had come all the way to the village to educate the kids on First Aid. they were happy to see that the kids already knew most of what they were trying to teach them.

Finally, it was practice time again! The fact that this was the last day they could get for practice kept everyone on their toes and we were all game for 2 hours of rigorous practice. Meanwhile, few of us went around the village, inviting some important personalities and politicians for the closing ceremony. Most of them had already heard about the summer camp, as word spreads very quickly in villages, and were more than willing to attend the function.

Finally, after ensuring everything was in place, we left the place hoping for a grand and successful closing ceremony. I'll be back with another post entirely about the closing ceremony and trust me, it's gonna be real interesting!

To see pics of Weekend 3, click here.

To visit our official AF Mysore blog, click here.

HALLI SUMMER CAMP- A Detailed Report- Part 2

Day 3: 1st May '10

After the success of the painting class during Day2 and looking at the amount of interest shown by the kids towards it, it was decided that we go for another activity on arts and crafts. So the first half of Day3 was dedicated to "Mask Making". the children designed different kinds of masks using colour papers, paints, crayons, etc. guided yet again by Mrs. Sandhya who had taken the painting classes for them. This was probably the most exciting activity for the kids in the entire summer camp and the look of happiness on their faces after they completed their respective masks and were allowed to wear them over their faces, was really priceless !! It was followed by a long photo-session which included a lot of cheering and shouting.
Since all this consumed a lot of time, even brunch got delayed and after that, few of the major activities were postponed to Day4. But the children had another exciting thing in store, especially the guys. Mr. Makrand, or "MAC" as he's popularly known as, demonstrated rope climbing, and quick learners that they were, the boys hardly took any time to learn it and do it themselves. Even some of the volunteers tried their hand at this, and were pretty successful. At the same time, the girls continued to be trained by Anil on swiftness and agility.

Day 4: 2nd May '10

The day kick-started with a very useful session by Mr. Bhanuchandran, who's a professional speaker on career guidance. He spoke about the different aspects that together make up an ideal life, the key points to be considered by a student while deciding about his/her career and various other such useful topics. Some of the children expressed their dreams and ambitions- one of the girls wanted to be a Kannada teacher in future, one guy aspired to be a software engineer, other kids had various other such goals. At the end of the session, they were asked to prepare a CAREER MAP as a home work, illustrating the path that they need to take up to achieve their respective goals.
This was followed by another session of science experiments by Vidya, Girish, Vinay, Seetha and a few others. But this was a lot different from that on Day2, as it was not a typical classroom session but instead the kids were divided into 3 groups and were shown some practical demonstrations of a few concepts like- formation of spectrum, role of O2 and CO2 in combustion, inertia, etc.
Post brunch, they got another very interesting session by Jayanth on computers, where he actually dismantled a CPU and showed them the different components, explaining how each thing works. Even though the children were already exposed to some basic concepts about computers, this was something they had never come across so it was fascinating for them to realize how a computer actually looks from inside. Finally Anupam and I came up with another short session on English and today they learnt how to converse with another person in English when you meet him/her for the first time. So this was about Weekend-2. Overall a very packed and useful 2 days, which inspired us to continue the camp for two more days and hoping to cover a lot more interesting and useful stuff in the last week.

Click here to see pics of Summer Camp- Weekend 2.
To know more about Aashayein Foundation, visit our official blog by clicking here.

HALLI SUMMER CAMP- A Detailed Report- Part 1

DAY 1 : 24th Apr '10

Well, HALLI SUMMER CAMP- something which we were looking forward to ever since we started thinking about it, was finally about to begin. It was all set! All of us gathered near Bake Point at 7.30 am and it was heartening to see all the volunteers pouring in with loads of excitement and determination. The village was around 25 km from Mysore and we reached there pretty much on time, i.e 9 am. The kids were instructed to be present in the school by that time, but when we reached there, we could hardly find anyone. We waited for half an hour more and still no sign of kids!! All of us started getting cold feet as this was something we never expected to happen. Is that it? Did the summer camp turn into a big fiasco even before it started ? Have the children forgotten about the camp ? Or have they decided against coming? So many questions in mind, no answers. Then suddenly at around 9.45, we saw a bunch of kids walking into the school. First hint of smile on our faces. And then it started.. They started pouring in and soon by around 10 am, there were atleast around 30- 35 of them! We had planned for 50 but this was not a bad number at all to start with. And from then on we never looked back!

Jayanth started off with an ice-breaking session to let the kids know each other better. Initially they seemed to be a bit uncomfortable but very soon they let out their inhibitions and started actively participating in the events that followed.
Vinay, Girish and Vidya came up with some simple science experiments to explain a few concepts to the children in a very interesting manner. Transmission of heat(like radiation, conduction etc), transmission of light(reflection, refraction) etc. were some of the topics covered and the kids showed a lot of interest in them. The effort taken by Vinay and Girish to find out the Kannada words for all these scientific terms, to be able to explain everything to them in their mother tongue, was seriously commendable.
After that it was brunch time. We made it a point to take food for them on all days of the camp and the kids loved it. After the break, we wanted to do something more in the classroom for a while before their outdoor activities began. So it was time for a short session on spoken English. Anupam and I didn't actually take a session as such, but it was just an attempt to find out how much English they knew. We soon realized they could hardly manage to speak in English so it was a much bigger challenge. We managed to teach them some simple words and their opposites to start with. Soon after that, it was time for some outdoor action! Under the supervision of Anil, the "official fitness expert" of AF-Mysore, we took the kids to the nearby grounds and made them play a few games. They had loads of fun and so did the volunteers.
After that it was time to call it a day. One down, many more to go. But we were certainly happy with the kinda start we got.

DAY 2 : 25th Apr '10

The USP of Day 2 was painting and so we had arranged for an expert from Infosys- Mrs. Sandhya to come and give some basic tips to the kids on drawing and painting. At the end of it, the children were asked to make a painting each, using their own ideas and creativity. All the necessary logistics were provided by us and they came up with some wonderful pieces of art, each better than the other. The post-brunch session was similar to Day 1 where we started with our English session helping them to form simple sentences in English. Anil's outdoor session on Day2 included some serious agility training for both boys and girls.
So that's about the first two days. Will be back with more about the subsequent weeks so keep reading. :)

Click here to see pics of Summer Camp- Weekend 1.
To know more about Aashayein Foundation, visit our official blog by clicking here.

HALLI SUMMER CAMP- A Prelude

It was probably around noon on a Sunday, after yet another "SBS". A group of Aashayein Foundation volunteers sitting in a café and sipping coffee, all with worried faces. All plans of conducting a summer camp going in vain. Govt. schools in Mysore not co-operating, not enough kids in any of the orphanages, we volunteers were trying to make the last forlorn attempts in making it work, but it didn’t look likely. Suddenly out of nowhere, one of us just comes up with a thought- Why not have the summer camp in a village? And that was it- in the next 3-4 hours, we managed to choose a village and even go there and find out the possibilities. At the end of the day, we knew for sure- WE WERE GONNA HAVE THE SUMMER CAMP AND WE KNEW WHERE!

So it was “Destination Hadinaru” from then on. Around 25 km from Mysore, the village is quite apt for our exciting project. A school has around 800 odd kids, out of which we’ve chosen 50 for our camp this time and all 50 of them have just passed their 9^th grade. Few of us have already met those kids and they seemed to be highly excited about the whole thing! So the last two weekends have been pretty busy for all of us in trying to chalk out the whole plan. One can clearly feel the excitement and the jitter building up with all the volunteers who are trying their level best to make this event a success.

Starting from the 24^th of April, the camp will go on for 3 weekends from 9 am to 1 pm. Some interesting science experiments, basic training on Vedic maths, fitness and agility training, career guidance, morale boosting sessions, basic training on computers and internet, painting, crafts etc. are some of the highlights of the camp. Plans are still on to include more exciting stuff in the stipulated time period of 6 days.

It’s the first big event that our 3-month-old AF- Mysore is taking up and we know it’s not gonna be easy. But all we know is, we have enough potential and zeal in us to make this work. As the saying goes "There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."

PS: For those who don't know about the organization I work for and are interested to find out, please visit our official AF-Mysore blog- http://afmysore.blogspot.com/