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.
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.
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