Yesterday, was one of the most memorable days of my journey.
30 May 2012
We planned to use music as a tool for learning in today's session. We made the kids hear 'one world song' to get the feel of the song. We played the song again and explained them every word of it on a white board. Our kids do not understand English so to make them understand an English song was no easy task. We again played the song asked them to visualize and co-relate with the words they learnt. The kids were then divided into groups depending upon their interest in drawing, writing or dancing. The kids then expressed their views on the song and what they understood through their drawings, writings and dancing. We are yet to analyze each of their assignment, which is in process.
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After 15 minutes break, we all did a prayer and i informed that since the office space would be required by other interns and volunteers we would have to study in the balcony which is extremely dirty, loaded with garbage and has no walls to protect us from sunlight. I will admit I was feeling bad when I shared this but i dint let them know. Instead, I motivated them saying that It was a good opportunity for us to design our own class room the way we wanted! To my shock, all the kids were happy and started dreaming of their classroom and came up with creative uber ideas how should we convert it into a beautiful classroom. I was awed by their optimism!
The place was so dirty I got tensed how are we gona clean this up and when and where do we start? Before I could stop thinking, my kids came with two buckets, brooms and dustbins and started cleaning the balcony. Two of them started picking up the trash, 2 of them swept the floor, few mopped the floor. Within one hour entire balcony was cleaner than ever before.
Also one wonderful thing I observed was that how during these three years of journey they have started caring for each other and have started treating each other as a family. The balcony dint have a wall but a single iron rod so it was dangerous for younger kids, they could easily fall off. So two of the kids from no where found 5 pipes, iron wires and made a safety wall so the younger kids were safe.
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A bunch of them got a saree from our cloth collection drive box and tied them across the rods to protect the kids from sunlight. They were so happy to have found a dirty ( i mean it, really dirty) iron box and started cleaning it. I was like you cant use this, how can you use it?and i bombarded them with questions. They were like 'Didi wait for some time, It is our cupboard.' I kept wondering.After sometime I see that dirty box beautifully painted and placed near the door so that we could use it to place the books and stationary so that they dont have to carry their books home. my lazy kids dint want to carry their books home so they figured out a smarter way :)
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I realized that kids when given liberty to think freely can create things beyond our imagination. Today, when they started creating their own classroom from nothing without any resource, made me believe- in future,just with the passion, optimistic approach,hard work and the will to follow their dreams they would survive inspite of all odds and live a life of dignity.I was moved to tears seeing them work so hard to build their classroom. Instead of 2 hours of session they worked for 6 hours and were still not tired. I had to force them to go Home!
This is what a 'PURPOSE' does to us-the humans, work hard with perseverance and joy and work even hard for longer hours haha :) It was a very long day but I dint feel the stress at all :)
30 May 2012
We planned to use music as a tool for learning in today's session. We made the kids hear 'one world song' to get the feel of the song. We played the song again and explained them every word of it on a white board. Our kids do not understand English so to make them understand an English song was no easy task. We again played the song asked them to visualize and co-relate with the words they learnt. The kids were then divided into groups depending upon their interest in drawing, writing or dancing. The kids then expressed their views on the song and what they understood through their drawings, writings and dancing. We are yet to analyze each of their assignment, which is in process.
.JPG)
After 15 minutes break, we all did a prayer and i informed that since the office space would be required by other interns and volunteers we would have to study in the balcony which is extremely dirty, loaded with garbage and has no walls to protect us from sunlight. I will admit I was feeling bad when I shared this but i dint let them know. Instead, I motivated them saying that It was a good opportunity for us to design our own class room the way we wanted! To my shock, all the kids were happy and started dreaming of their classroom and came up with creative uber ideas how should we convert it into a beautiful classroom. I was awed by their optimism!
The place was so dirty I got tensed how are we gona clean this up and when and where do we start? Before I could stop thinking, my kids came with two buckets, brooms and dustbins and started cleaning the balcony. Two of them started picking up the trash, 2 of them swept the floor, few mopped the floor. Within one hour entire balcony was cleaner than ever before.
Also one wonderful thing I observed was that how during these three years of journey they have started caring for each other and have started treating each other as a family. The balcony dint have a wall but a single iron rod so it was dangerous for younger kids, they could easily fall off. So two of the kids from no where found 5 pipes, iron wires and made a safety wall so the younger kids were safe..JPG)
.JPG)
I realized that kids when given liberty to think freely can create things beyond our imagination. Today, when they started creating their own classroom from nothing without any resource, made me believe- in future,just with the passion, optimistic approach,hard work and the will to follow their dreams they would survive inspite of all odds and live a life of dignity.I was moved to tears seeing them work so hard to build their classroom. Instead of 2 hours of session they worked for 6 hours and were still not tired. I had to force them to go Home!
This is what a 'PURPOSE' does to us-the humans, work hard with perseverance and joy and work even hard for longer hours haha :) It was a very long day but I dint feel the stress at all :)
Exemplary!
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