Their Enthusiasm knows No Bounds !!

Wow!! Here I am blogging not as an intern but as a core team member of SELCO Foundation. It has been two weeks into my new job as a 'Community Solution Engineer' and I am loving every bit of it. One of the programmes I am looking into is 'Children - A Window to Community Issues'. Why I am blogging about this particular programme is because children have always been my fascination and they never miss a chance to mesmerize me.
Well the programme objective is to use the children to bring out the issues in the community and also dig out the solution from these young minds. Every programme starts with baby steps towards the greater purpose. The idea of this programme is a month old and 11/07/12 was the day the programme took the first baby step. The first step of the programme was to actually go to the school and start interacting with the students of 7th standard (13 years old) in a rural government school in Kukkavu which is 18km from Ujire. The school has 138 students, and has primary and higher primary classes. We are also running 'Computers for schools' project in this particular school and when I was an intern I used to teach the kids some basics of computers and all the kids in the school pretty much know me.
So, I was there on 11th at 11.45am and I entered the class at exactly 12 in the noon. I will get one hour to interact with the kids. As I entered all the 20 students in the class wished 'Namaste Teacher' with a big smile on their faces. It was indeed a warm welcome for me and also a good start for this new programme. I had planned to teach 'how to make 5 types of cap from a newspaper', which was an idea I got from the website arvindguptatoys.com. By the way, I have to mention here that this website is a storehouse of awesome videos for kids.
I had taken 20 newspapers from hostel and I started distributing them to the kids one by one. As I was distributing the newspapers the kids were all murmuring about the pictures that were printed in their newspaper.

ALL SET TO MAKE THE CAPS !!!

After distributing the newspaper I taught them to make the 'rain cap', then the 'Chefs cap' which the children chose to name it as 'Rani Kirita' (which means 'queen's crown'), then the 'politicians cap', then the 'square cap' and then the 'Graduation cap' but the children choose to name it as 'Lawyers cap'. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

The rain cap

'Kirita'

Politician's cap

Square cap

Lawyer's cap

The kids were really enthusiastic throughout the session and they helped each other whenever someone was left behind. I could notice the care they had for each other !!

Kids with their caps which they had made during the session !!!

After the successful cap making session I divided them into 4 teams and asked each of the team member to make a cap. Each team member is suppose to make a cap different from the other team member. As soon as I told this all the students started fighting trying to decide which cap they will make. Immediately my brain gave an instant solution for the chaos. I assigned a team leader for each team and asked them to make the choice. Somewhere I wanted to develop leadership and team building qualities in the students. 

                     Then it was time for essay writing. I told the kids to write an essay about their village 'Kukkavu' in one sheet. I gave them 20 minutes for this. The kids finished it promptly on time and gave me the sheets. My session got over at 1pm and I had the mid day meal with the teachers of the school. The thing that grabbed my attention was the sight of the children sitting enthusiastically for the mid - day meal. There was a sense of sharing and gratitude in the air. 

                                            End of the day I was happy I could connect with the kids and hold their attention for the entire session. I came back and read the essays of all the kids. I was happy to find out that the kids really loved their village and their school. Each of them gave different interesting points about the village. And you know what.. I am looking forward to the next session and can't wait to meet these kids whose enthusiasm knows no bounds !!