Another day, another place...

23rd May 07 was the day of my CTW (Community Team work) project this year. The project I had chosen this time was in relation to Rakum Blind School.

Our project was to buy provisions and vegetables for the school. We were to buy about 700 kgs of rice and 50 kgs of vegetables. We were 12 volunteers for this project. We decided that rather than all of us spending the day shopping, we'd split up such that 1/2 of us went shopping and the other 1/2 went and spent quality time with the children. So, 6 of the volunteers went shopping, the rest of us went to the school.

We reached the school at 9 AM. There were about 150 children there. 30-40 of them were below 12 years and of the remaning we even had 2 students who's given their IAS exam. We started off by giving our introductions, telling the children who we were and why we were there. We then had our breakfast along with the children.

Then it was time for activities to begin. We split the children into 2 groups, based on their age groups. For the small children we had got clay and the first activity was to help them create their clay masterpieces.

For the older children we had the activity of "know your partner better". We paired off the children and gave them a minute to get to know their partner - who they were, where they were from, what thier interests were... Then each of the children got an opportunity to introduce their partner. Initial there was a lot of hesitation to speak out into the microphone, but once we started off, they did a great job. There were a few who were not comfortable speaking in English, so we encouraged them to speak in the language of their choice.

Then it was time for some singing.
Man! are these children talented of what!

By then, the rest of the volunteers were back from their shopping adventures. We all had lunch together.

Then the music teachers from the school gave their performance.

We had the Master of Mimicry, the Hindustani teacher and Carnatic teacher each give their performance...

We then had a quiz competition for the children. We were amazed by the knowledge of the children in not just their school syllabus but also current events. They knew their trivia well, be it Narain Karthikeyan or Sunita Williams.

By the time we finished, it was snack time....and even before we realised, it was time to leave.

Before leaving, we met Mr. Rakum, the founder of the school. It takes a lot of courage, patience, perseverence and a good heart to run such an institution. God bless the likes of Mr. Rakum.

The other CTW projects that I've been a part of:
Baale school
Acts of Faith
:)