SIDUR meet…

“The hardest job kid’s face today is learning good manners without seeing any.”——–Fred Astaire.

Date : 26th June, 2006

Place: SIDUR , Malakpet, Hyderabad.

Team Pankhudi : 12-15 members

This week’s meet was at SIDUR as planned earlier…As we found out, SIDUR means “Society for the Integrated Development in Urban and Rural areas”.Some of us were there last week too. And we already developed some rapport with the kids to facilitate things. .Some 15 of our volunteers assembled there around 1 pm.

After the initial ice-breaking, it was some gossip and then we insisted the kids have their lunch as it was already half past one. The lunch was sponsored by ~Pankhudi. Being PACCA HYDERABADIES, we got them BIRYANI from the most famous hangout for Biryani in Hyderabad viz., BAWARCHI…. The kids enjoyed the lunch as it was an off-routine Menu.
Then these guys were injected with high levels of energy, post lunch… so we thought we could start off with our REAL (read Academic) interaction….We had given them some books last week. So we asked them if they were of help and were they practicing anything from those. Very reluctantly and with all artificiality, they replied and thanked us ;-) . And we asked them if they would love to be taught lessons by us.. Some of them were tight lipped while others were brave enough to show us the door . Smart enough to understand their gesture, we dropped the plan of Academics on a Sunday…..

So we decided to play Dumb Charades and the kids were DEFINITELY ready for it…We joined them and divided ourselves into two groups… Briefed them abt the rules and the kids were too sharp and didn’t need much explanation… But it was needed for some of our volunteers I guess … We played for around an hour ….and as it was already guessed before the start of the the game, the most powerful team won as I was part of it.….and the others could do nothing (inspite of cheating many times), but applaud…..Iit was pretty interesting and all of us had great fun….
Then we moved to Talent hunt….as u could see in the previously posted pics, SIDUR has some real good dancers and we didn’t want to miss out on them….so we did some DJ’ing and the kids danced to our numbers ….whats noteworthy is that some of the very shy kids came out to dance today, in contrast to their last weeks performances….and that was what we were looking for….
Next we had our Kodak Moments session with some 6 odd cameras clicking around (like on the Cannes RedCarpet)…..we along with the kids posed for the cameras in various angles and moods…..this is clearly visible by the pics posted on Pankhudi web …..this session lasted for some half an hour with some masti with the kids ….some of them even tried their hand at circus feats, no matter they succeded or otherwise…:-D

Then we decided to wind up the session…..the co-ordinator informed that they would be moving to a new home the month end and welcomed us there as soon as they move in….we promised to visit them with a House Warming session……One thing noticible is that…..In course of our association with Krushi, they were gifted with a vast new campus with all facilities…. and now, its SIDUR’s turn… even they were blessed with a new ,bigger,bettter home …. Three Cheers …HIP

HIP HURRAY !!!

SIDUR meet…

“The hardest job kid’s face today is learning good manners without seeing any.”——–Fred Astaire.

Date : 26th June, 2006

Place: SIDUR , Malakpet, Hyderabad.

Team Pankhudi : 12-15 members

This week’s meet was at SIDUR as planned earlier…As we found out, SIDUR means “Society for the Integrated Development in Urban and Rural areas”.Some of us were there last week too. And we already developed some rapport with the kids to facilitate things. .Some 15 of our volunteers assembled there around 1 pm.

After the initial ice-breaking, it was some gossip and then we insisted the kids have their lunch as it was already half past one. The lunch was sponsored by ~Pankhudi. Being PACCA HYDERABADIES, we got them BIRYANI from the most famous hangout for Biryani in Hyderabad viz., BAWARCHI…. The kids enjoyed the lunch as it was an off-routine Menu.
Then these guys were injected with high levels of energy, post lunch… so we thought we could start off with our REAL (read Academic) interaction….We had given them some books last week. So we asked them if they were of help and were they practicing anything from those. Very reluctantly and with all artificiality, they replied and thanked us ;-) . And we asked them if they would love to be taught lessons by us.. Some of them were tight lipped while others were brave enough to show us the door . Smart enough to understand their gesture, we dropped the plan of Academics on a Sunday…..

So we decided to play Dumb Charades and the kids were DEFINITELY ready for it…We joined them and divided ourselves into two groups… Briefed them abt the rules and the kids were too sharp and didn’t need much explanation… But it was needed for some of our volunteers I guess … We played for around an hour ….and as it was already guessed before the start of the the game, the most powerful team won as I was part of it.….and the others could do nothing (inspite of cheating many times), but applaud…..Iit was pretty interesting and all of us had great fun….
Then we moved to Talent hunt….as u could see in the previously posted pics, SIDUR has some real good dancers and we didn’t want to miss out on them….so we did some DJ’ing and the kids danced to our numbers ….whats noteworthy is that some of the very shy kids came out to dance today, in contrast to their last weeks performances….and that was what we were looking for….
Next we had our Kodak Moments session with some 6 odd cameras clicking around (like on the Cannes RedCarpet)…..we along with the kids posed for the cameras in various angles and moods…..this is clearly visible by the pics posted on Pankhudi web …..this session lasted for some half an hour with some masti with the kids ….some of them even tried their hand at circus feats, no matter they succeded or otherwise…:-D

Then we decided to wind up the session…..the co-ordinator informed that they would be moving to a new home the month end and welcomed us there as soon as they move in….we promised to visit them with a House Warming session……One thing noticible is that…..In course of our association with Krushi, they were gifted with a vast new campus with all facilities…. and now, its SIDUR’s turn… even they were blessed with a new ,bigger,bettter home …. Three Cheers …HIP

HIP HURRAY !!!

Summer Camp at Krushi Homes

Date : 6-7 May, 2006

Place: Krushi Home for Street Children, St. Francis College Lane (Lane beside LifeStyle).

Team Pankhudi : 15-20 members


Finally the D-Day,the most sought after day ,May 6th arrived.Filled with warm wishes from everyone, we launched the ~Pankhudi Summer Camp 2006 at Krushi homes for Street Children with the ~Pankhudi banner soaring loftily in the blue skies. This home basically consists of 52 children in the age group of 7-15 yrs, all Boys.
But, it being summer vacation most of them left home.There were 14 students left. The Sainik school alumni provides funding to this home.These students attend a govt. run school nearby.

The activities in chronological order…

DAY 1:

1.Ice-breaking or Introductory session: We divided the children into 4 groups and named them with their favourite cartoon characters Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Donald Duck,Bugs Bunny.We tied colored ribbons to their hands ,like mickey with red,Donald with blue etc.Then each group introduced itself at the centre stage and performed a dance or a song.

2.Ad Mag(Advertising): Here we gave each team a product and 30 minutes time to prepare and 2min time to perform.We could bring to light the creativity and talent of the children.Each one exhibited their product well.A few of them can become future managers in Advertising!!!

3.Drawing: We provided drawing sheets,crayons,pencils etc and within seconds these plain white sheets were filled with bright ,colorful pictures.You might have already seen few of them in our photo gallery.Especially the yellow house drawn by little Rajesh.

4.Treasure Hunt: It was about finding objects hidden by us in all possible secret corners in the home.Kids enjoyed this activity a lot. The children went totally gaga over all the events and were waiting for more to pour in but,as it was evening we had to finally depart and wait for 14-16 hrs to resume our non-stop,rocking summer camp!!!


DAY 2:

1.Dance class: Our dance master Puneet started his jazz class at around 10 am and this went by continuously for 3 hrs time.This bubbly Puneet took all the pains to come to the camp inspite of his busy schedule.He encouraged children not to get tired soon saying “No pains,No gains”.His dance sequences shenai,shimmi-shake 1,2 ,3,4 still reverberate in our minds.He taught some 6 steps and a dance sequence in just 3 hrs time which takes nearly a week’s time to learn in a dance institute.Three cheers Puneet!!!

2.Mime: Here each team was give a moral science topic and they had to portray the message through a mime.The topics were 1.Cleanliness 2.Traffic rules 3.Save energy 4.Each one,Teach one.The way Harini , Gautami and her troop brought in the moral of cleanliness impressed the judges and they bagged the first prize.

3.Outdoor activity: We team played cricket with children and it was fun altogether.

4.Closing: We cut the cake, ~Pankhudi written on it with yummy,delicious cream.(you should check this photograph in our gallery). We then distributed gifts to the winners of the games. The camp ended with a last photo session with our celebrity kids.Yeah they should be celebrated for all the prizes they won in our summer camp!!!
One last look at this “Krushi home for street children” reminded me of an inspiring old telugu film song written by Sri Veturi.

“Krushi unte manushulu Rushulautaaru…. Mahaapurushulautaaru…. Tarataraalaki taragani velugautaaru…. Ilavlupulautaaruu”

If we youth put a little bit of “Krushi” we can surely make a difference in the lives of such unfortunate children.Hoping that this summer camp will remain a milestone in the history of ~Pankhudi…


Cheers…
Team Hyderabad.

MOC and St.Theresa’s Visits

Team Pankhudi : Shahzad,Mohan,Ramesh,KrishnaKant,Sandeep,Sumanth,Harini,Nitin.

Place 1: St.Teresa’s (Erragadda)We team reached the place around 10 am.We interacted with those sweet little kids for sometime.Shahzad and Mohan were happy to meet these kids personally.Then they introduced themselves to the sister there.She narrated some of the pathetic stories of the kids before they weren’t brought into her home.We spent some one hour’s time here.

Place 2: Missionaries Of Charity(Opposite Clock tower,Secunderabad)Sumanth and Sandeep joined us here at around 11:30 am.It was unfortunate that we weren’t allowed to meet the kids as it wasn’t the visiting hours.On requesting the sister for sometime she finally allowed us but, most of the kids were to the Sunday prayers at the nearby church.Mohan and Shahzad went around the whole place and started inquiring regarding the prevailing conditions.But,all their efforts just went in vain as the sister as usual gave a convincing reply to each of the questions asked.We spent some 30min time in here.

Later our guests had a yummy,sumptuous lunch at RV(begumpet) then met with Harini and Nitin at CCD secunderabad and had a discussion about the site and the future course of action.

St.Theresa’s Picnic

“Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us every day.”

Date : 19th March 2006

Place :NTR Garden, Tank Bund.

And we, the Team Pankhudi at Hyderabad realized this on the 19 of March, when we took a group of 17 kids from the St. Teresa’s orphanage to a picnic to NTR gardens.

It was a bright and sunny day to start with and this worried us because the kids were too young to be taken out in the scorching heat. But when we saw the enthusiasm shown by the little ones, we put our worries on the back burner and started out from the children’s Home at around 3 in the afternoon.

The journey to the picnic spot was marked with the kids yelling “There goes a big bus”…”Look at the traffic light. Red says stop, Yellow says Wait and Green says go.” They were so excited about the trip that they sang to us throughout the journey.

Once we reached NTR gardens and ushered the kids in, we were faced with the dilemma of where to take them first, there were lots of rides and fountains and playing areas. We finally decided to let them have a ride on the merry-go-round. The kids had so much fun on it that they wanted to have another round on it.

After that we made the kids sit in the lawns and play a game called “Postman”…they thoroughly enjoyed it, even though they didn’t really understand the game very much. We arranged for some snacks next.

There is a toy train ride in the park. And the kids were very eager to get a ride in it…so we arranged for a ride for them on the train…the ride lasted for about 20 mins and once the kids were back from it they were full of stories about what they had seen during the ride.

Later we clicked lots of snaps to keep these memories fresh forever, relaxed a bit in the lawns there and distributed chocolates to the kids. It surprises me to see how little it takes to make the children happy.

At around 6 it was time to leave and it was hard to leave the adorable kids and go home. But all good things must come to an end and we decided that we would do this again whenever it was possible.

There are only two ways to live your life.One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

And that is what we learnt from the kids today.

Visit to Govt. Girls High School

“He who wants to do good knocks at the gate, he who loves doing good finds the door open”——-Rabindranath Tagore.

Date :10th February 2006.

Place :Government High School (Girls)Amberpet,Hyderabad.

Team Pankhudi : Me, Nitin, Praveen, Soumya, Shailaja, Arvind (From Pankhudi )Other volunteers from TCS, in association with whom this initiative was taken up!

The statistics are mind boggling…there are nearly 1,24,000+ students studying in the various govt. schools in and around Hyderabad and Secunderabad alone. Many of these students suffer from ailments ranging from minor eye-sight problems to some major skin problems, hearing problems and deficiencies which get overlooked. Many cases have been reported where students with eye-sight problems that could be easily rectified by usage of glasses, have been rendered permanently blind due to negligence and ignorance of the parents and children towards eye-care. The children fear that if they report their problem to their parents, the parents will not allow them to attend school any more because the treatment would cost them money.
There is an urgent need to screen these govt. schools for children who are in dire needs of medical attention.This project involves 2 steps —

1) Preliminary screening – Done by voluntary organizations such as ~Pankhudi, Premalaya etc. It involves a few basic tests like the height-weight ratio test, preliminary eye-test through various eye-charts, hearing ability tests, checks for vaccinations, mental stability tests, learning and physical disabilities tests, skin disorder tests etc.

2) After all these tests are done, the cases which need medical attention most immediately are forwarded to the respective medical institutions. For e.g.: all cases pertaining to eye-care are forwarded to the LV Prasad Eye Institute, which is a leading institute for eye-care in India. This institute has come forward to provide free treatment for all the children diagnosed to be needing help.

Today, as part of this project we happened to visit the Government Girls High School. There were about 15 of us present at the school. We split ourselves into groups of 2-3 and got started off on the tests at around 10 in the morning. The school has a batch of roughly 250 kids attending the morning school and 250 kids attending the afternoon school. It had classes from 6th to 10th.

Initially the kids were very shy to tell us about their problems, but as the interaction progressed they opened up to us. We screened through the 250 students in about 3 ½ hrs or so. During the process of the general check-ups we had the chance to interact with the kids and ask them about their family and the general state of the school. It was wonderful talking to them and they were very enthusiastic to let us know about their favorite subjects, their favorite heroes and movies!!
In the coming week another 15 schools are going to be screened for which the volunteers are going to be sourced from NSS.

On a parting note upon asking what she wanted to be when she grew up, one girl answered — “Even if we want to become something, we don’t have that chance, we are not that lucky!” Her answer really got me thinking.

Visit to Vatsalya Sindhu

Place: Vatsalya Sindhu
Date: 7th January 2006
Team Pankhudi : Sumanth, Ramesh, Klueless, Sandeep, Adept.

We the team Pankhudi, reached Vatsalya Sindhu by 11:00 am. It reminded us of our ancient “gurukul” system of education. The lush green plants, the cattle ,the children, lured us to such an extent that we couldn’t just come off that place and make it to the technical conference at 11 am:(The place was altogether a mini-village. When we were in school most of our mother’s used to call “Wake up! Wake up! Its already 7′o clock you will get late to school”.But, these children seem to be astounding.

They wake up at 5 in the morning, go for a jog and exercise till 6 ,then do their daily chores like washing their own clothes, gardening, taking care of cattle.( They do all of their work by themselves.) They go for a bath and offer `suryanamaskar’, have their breakfast and be to school by bus or auto. There are totally 22 children all boys (there is a separate home for girls too).Of these 22, 18 of them be to school. Most of them are orphans but, some of them have parents.They go to a Telugu medium school “saraswathi sishu bhavan”.Coming home they play around for sometime and study till night. These kids are taken care off by a couple.RSS also helps the home.

The kids introduced themselves and answered to our queries regarding their schooling and daily routine. We changed our `mantra’ this time…we distributed fruits A doctor visits the home once a week and the children are spruce and healthy. They entertained us with their melodious songs and even gave greeting cards on the occasion of`sankranti(pongal)’ festival which is round the corner. Now they remember our names too. This home is well-funded. They get funding from private organizations. After completion of their schooling I think we can sponser them for higher education or some sort of training like that given at `seva sadan’ at Bangalore. This reminds me of a famous quote..

“If you give a man a fish, you give him food for a day.If you give a man a fishing rod, you give him food for life.”