13 October, 2012
Venkata Ramana School, Alwarpet.
The Social Causes Club was back in action at VRS, after a month of studying for exams. A team of 8 volunteers reached the school at around 10.30 am which is the usual time sessions for VRS begin. After rounding up the 20 kids at the school, we split them into 4 groups. Saying rounding up makes it sound so simple that I feel the need to elaborate:
These kids belong to 3rd, 4th and 5th grades. They are at the peak of their energy and the boys can barely sit still for a few seconds. They are exceptionally interested in tackling each other to the ground. We would get a couple of them to sit, but by the time we get to the rest, they would start running around and the cycle goes on....Outnumbered, it was a while until we could finally get them settled.
Each group was led by utmost two volunteers.As they settled into their groups, we handed each group a chart and asked them to draw something relevant to their topic after which they would talk about it. The teams chose their own topics for making presentations - family, Pongal , Deepavali and maps. We found that they could come up with a lot of ideas for both speaking as well as drawing. Given sketches and crayons, their indulgence knew no bounds. We gave them close to half an hour to finish drawing and then they started their presentations. Each team went on stage and spoke about the topic assigned to them. While some kids were more comfortable speaking in Tamil, others tried to learn by talking in English.
For their age group, being barely ten years of age, they did amazing. They could learn whatever the volunteers taught them very easily and competition made them more enthusiastic.At the end of the presentations, we chose the winner to be the team Family - Kavya, Lokeshwaran, Vaishali and Swetha. We gave them their gifts and then distributed biscuits among the kids. After that the volunteers spent some more time with the kids before winding up.
What we realized after the session was that handling primary school kids was getting tougher day by day. Settling them and making them listen is easier said than done. We realized that we could handle high school children much better than primary school kids. Yet, we knew we had accomplished a lot that day - making the students come forward on stage and speak in a language they were barely fluent in, was an achievement in itself. It makes me proud to say that the Social Causes Club has made another event successful and there shall be many more to come...
Venkata Ramana School, Alwarpet.
The Social Causes Club was back in action at VRS, after a month of studying for exams. A team of 8 volunteers reached the school at around 10.30 am which is the usual time sessions for VRS begin. After rounding up the 20 kids at the school, we split them into 4 groups. Saying rounding up makes it sound so simple that I feel the need to elaborate:
These kids belong to 3rd, 4th and 5th grades. They are at the peak of their energy and the boys can barely sit still for a few seconds. They are exceptionally interested in tackling each other to the ground. We would get a couple of them to sit, but by the time we get to the rest, they would start running around and the cycle goes on....Outnumbered, it was a while until we could finally get them settled.
Each group was led by utmost two volunteers.As they settled into their groups, we handed each group a chart and asked them to draw something relevant to their topic after which they would talk about it. The teams chose their own topics for making presentations - family, Pongal , Deepavali and maps. We found that they could come up with a lot of ideas for both speaking as well as drawing. Given sketches and crayons, their indulgence knew no bounds. We gave them close to half an hour to finish drawing and then they started their presentations. Each team went on stage and spoke about the topic assigned to them. While some kids were more comfortable speaking in Tamil, others tried to learn by talking in English.
For their age group, being barely ten years of age, they did amazing. They could learn whatever the volunteers taught them very easily and competition made them more enthusiastic.At the end of the presentations, we chose the winner to be the team Family - Kavya, Lokeshwaran, Vaishali and Swetha. We gave them their gifts and then distributed biscuits among the kids. After that the volunteers spent some more time with the kids before winding up.What we realized after the session was that handling primary school kids was getting tougher day by day. Settling them and making them listen is easier said than done. We realized that we could handle high school children much better than primary school kids. Yet, we knew we had accomplished a lot that day - making the students come forward on stage and speak in a language they were barely fluent in, was an achievement in itself. It makes me proud to say that the Social Causes Club has made another event successful and there shall be many more to come...
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