By Keren Nazareth | Co-Director
Activities Initiated
Celebration of Festival
Children at the centres celebrated The Republic Day on 26th January, 2011. Children were told the importance of the day in a form of story. Flags and chocolates were distributed. Children played different games and celebrated the festival.
Exposure Visits
Visit to Malav Talav
Children from Vasna centre went to the exposure visit of Malav Talav. Malav Talav is a beautiful garden with the lake near Vasna. Children visited the garden on 29th January, 2011. They played games and enjoyed snacks.
Visit to Temple
Children from Vasna centre went to visit the Shiv Temple on 12th February, 2011. The temple is near to Vasna. Children were told some stories of Lord Shiv.
Distribution of Kit
All the children at Vasna and Behrampura centres were provided with a kit. The kit included a bag, notebooks, lunch box and pencil box. A token amount of Rs. 20 was collected from each child. Children were very happy when they were told about it.
“I am so happy today”, said Roshni, a student from Vasna centre, “This is the first bag I have ever got. I will use it carefully and keep it for a long period of time.”
Activities with French Students
In February, 2011, SAATH had visitors from Lycee International School, France. 15 high school students had come to Mahatma Gandhi International School, Ahmedabad, as a part of student exchange programme. The students invited all the children of Child Friendly Spaces for two afternoons (17th & 18th February). It was a treasure of activities for the children of Child Friendly Spaces. A total of 65 students from Vasna and Juhapura centres participated in the activities. The activities planned for the children were, painting, making butterfly, making key-chain, instant photographs, magic show, songs, dance etc. Children enjoyed with the French students a lot.
“I now know how to make the key-chain and I loved it the most.”, said Gulshan, a student from Juhapura centre. “In the beginning I felt shy but all ‘didis’ and ‘bhaiyas’ are so nice. I got to learn many things in these two days.”
Story of Roshni
Roshni Vaghela is a 10 yrs old resident of Pravinnagar-Guptanagar. Roshni’s family includes her parents, 2 younger sisters and 1 younger brother. The family migrated few years back from a small village of Gujarat. Roshni’s parents are vegetable vendors. After the migration, Roshni was sent back to the village where she used to live with her grandparents. Roshni was enrolled in the school and passed std. 1st.
In order to help her mother with work and home, Roshni was sent to Ahmedabad. Roshni started taking care of her siblings and helping her parents with their work. Roshni is one of the very few children who got enrolled when the centre was started in year 2009. She was punctual and good at studies. When the teacher approached her parents, they said that they didn’t want to send her to the school and they wanted her not to go to the centre as well because she had to take care of her younger siblings. The teacher convinced her parents and allowed all her siblings, Nilam (9 yrs), Naina (6 yrs) and Yug (3 yrs) to come to the centre.
Roshni is good at studies. She comes to centre regularly. But she doesn’t go to school. The other reason along with her responsibility is that the Municipal School is far from her home and her parents cannot afford to send her to a private school.
Nutritional Supplements
The centres began providing nutrition supplements to the children at all the centres. A meeting was held of all the teachers and a schedule was worked out as to what would be given on which days. The schedule was planned in a way that would ensure all the various nutrients and variety in food – to keep the motivation of the children to eat what is served.
Jayshreeben, the teacher at Vasna says that the children don’t like drinking milk. While discussing this with Devuben, Kiranben and Keren suggestions were given that a chocolate supplement like horlicks or complan could be added to the milk, or a fruit milk dish could be prepared, which would appeal to the children’s tastes. She says she will suggest this to the others and try it out as well.
She says that the children enjoy the snacks, for some it keeps them coming back to the class. Gopalbhai who runs the Behrampura URC shares, “They enjoy the dry snacks more. That is what I have observed. The number of children who come and their attendance is slowly being regularised. Earlier on I used to notice Urmilaben used to go house to house for most of the children to bring them to the class. Nowadays the children come directly to class.”
The table on the left is for the month of January as planned by the teachers. It mentions – a mixture of rice puffs with peanuts and channa dal, milk, dates, jiggery and coconut, fruits, shakkarpara, a snack made out of dal, parle-G (biscuits).
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