We moved into Rein Basera on the morning of June 13th to begin the next phase of the program. Within one hour of the program, we were feeling like swatted flies! However, let us begin on a more positive note. At Rein Basera, we decided to divide the children into two groups: 14 and above are now sitting on one end of hall and are training in block printing, which they enjoy very much. Maybe it is only my imagination but since their separation from the younger kids, the 5 older boys and girls- Rajkumar, Naina, Gopi, Jyoti and Babita- have become more responsible and much more serious at learning than they were earlier, at Gandhi Park. Two wonderful ladies, Melody and Derby along with our newest member Vandita work with the older bunch and make incredible patterns on recycled paper.So that left us with the younger bunch that we brought in from Parade Ground and Astley Hall. We had decided to work with 20 children but soon realized the serious overestimation of our (i.e. Shaila and I, and the two teachers Seema and Usha) capabilities in thinking we could handle 20 brats all by ourselves in a place as fertile with possibilities of mischief as Rein Basera.The kids loved the space and went all-out! Running around, splashing paint everywhere except on the paper (of course!) and oh! a bathroom! They washed their faces and hair and they wanted to wash their hands after every five minutes! Day two was the same and the entire looked like two contrasting images, with the older kids block printing peacefully on one end and a tornado of sorts whooshing around on the other side where we were, with the little kids!At the end of day two, we decided that if we wanted this program to continue with the old zest and us to not die of over-exhaustion, we would have to bring down the numbers until we had settled and until the kids got familiar to the place. So today, we marched into Rein Basera with our usual five seniors and nine juniors. It was relatively calm, there was no screaming and most importantly, there was a lot of fun! Our crafts teacher Charu Goyal brought a great new activity of using discarded cups, tins and cardboard boxes to make pen stands and pencil holders. Then we went down to the hall on the ground floor (we sit on the first floor) and played blindfold and racing games.Pictures will be uploaded on our Facebook page on Friday. More updates to follow! 🙂
13 years, 4 months ago
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