One day camp @ Vergal Trust, Kancheepuram

“Well Begun is Half done” – There can be no other apt sentence to describe Ilampirai’s initiative at Vergal Trust, Kanchipuram.
It all started with meticulous planning for more than a week and drafting a detailed agenda. The roles and responsibilities were clearly distributed among volunteers. We were all eagerly looking for the D-Day. The plans were rehearsed during our travel to Kanchipuram and we reached there proudly wearing our Ilampirai identity cards.
We were welcomed by Mrs.Nalini and other coordinators of the Vergal Trust and the children had made a special welcome chart for us. We decided to finalize on the agenda while the children completed their prayers and proceeded for breakfast. We were also given sprouted beans for refreshing ourselves.
Once the stage was all set, the children started the day’s proceedings by singing songs. Sundar initiated our agenda by giving a brief introduction about Ilampirai and without any delay; we split the groups of children into 6 subgroups based on the colors in rainbow (Violet, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red) with 2 Ilampirai members taking care of each group. Each team was given a chart and asked write a team name followed by the names of all team members. In addition to this, they were asked to identify a team song which they can sing on stage.
The first activity planned was Theme based discussion in which a topic was provided to each team to discuss upon. Initially the volunteers gave an idea of what the topic is all about and basic information on how to involve in a group discussion. The topics were mainly on social awareness and basic general knowledge. Later the team members were asked to discuss among themselves about various points they can think based on the theme. The children also learnt the importance of knowledge sharing and listening to other’s opinions.
Final phase of this activity involved each team preparing a skit based on their theme and presenting it to the audience after introducing their team and team song. The children displayed a lot of enthusiasm and presence of mind while presenting their topics and they were judged based on various parameters.
The next activity was a very interesting one which we named as ‘passing info’. This activity aimed at making the children understand and learn the art of listening. The children were asked to sit in a circle and first child was told a small story which contains some names, places and things. The child has to retell the story to the next child without missing any of the key items told and this goes on till the last child. The last child in the group has to tell the complete story to the group. The relevance of this story to the original version is judged. Yellow and Red teams excelled in their presentations and grabbed the honors.
Though all of the teams were unable to convey the exact story and ended up with many hilarious versions, both the children and we, volunteers learnt from this practical example about the importance of listening skills.
Following passing info activity, there was a small talk by Ramya on how to prepare well for exams and to tackle exam fever. Students interacted well and took some valuable tips on the same. Just after this session, we had a lunch break. We were served with very delicious and healthy food which we ate alongside the children. We were impressed to see that not even a small amount of food was wasted by anyone. Refreshed by a great lunch, we were ready to start our afternoon interactive sessions.
The first on the agenda was Treasure Hunt. While the morning sessions were on, some of our volunteers had made arrangements for this event. They hid some items wrapped in a gift wrapper at various locations in and around the venue. Each team was given a list with clues leading to the identification of items. The children were asked to first identify them and go in search for the items. Though there was a delay due to rain, a small break was sufficient to complete this event. It was fun to see children running around to find the maximum number articles. We had the Violet and Orange teams triumphant with 4 items each.
The centerstage was handed over to our quiz master Alagar. He kept the children and audience enthralled with questions from various fields. The round which involved Tamil grammar and Tamil authors impressed everyone and we were held by surprise when the children were equally good in cracking the questions. The first round was done in counter clockwise direction and the following one in clockwise. The final round was a rapid fire with consecutive questions fired at each team and they have to answer all of them as soon as possible. After an hour long of battle of brains, the Blue and Green Team emerged victorious.
As we came to the close of the day, motivational videos were screened to the children and the messages had a great impact on them. Songs were sung by the children frequently in order to keep themselves engaged. There was also an interesting rain clap where the children started clapping using one finger and then increasing the finger count by one and finally we could hear a downpour from the claps and the rain clap subsided to a drizzle and cam to a halt.
Another aspect is the habit to gain the attention of children and maintaining an order by saying “Hi” and responding with “Hello”. Though it was done very frequently, it indeed provided an interest.
The organizers of the Vergal Trust gave a small speech in which they praised the way in which we presented various topics in different perspective. Prizes were distributed for all the events and each team had their photos taken with their volunteers. Since we had diwali around the corner, the volunteer who had planned for an art & craft class presented hand made greeting cards to the children and volunteers. The camp ended with a motivational song, “We Shall Overcome”, the anglicized version of “Hum Honge Kamyaab”. All the children bade us Good Bye with wishes for Diwali.
This report is incomplete without thanking all the volunteers who had planned and executed this to perfection. There were a lot of learnings to take back and improve upon as well. Being the first activity after Ilampirai being registered as a Public Charitable Trust, it was indeed a successful one and a motivational factor for all such initiatives to follow.
To sum it up, it was a worthy Sunday for Ilampirai to be proud of.
The END... Great team effort and all our preparation worked out more than expected...


Written By - Param ( Ironicz)

Dental camp @ Siragu School, Avadi

Dental Camp at Siragu Montessori School was one of the prime activities which were planned after Ilampirai’s first visit to Siragu. The major issue we could see in Siragu during our first visit was that the health and hygiene of the children were of a very low standard. It was a first of its kind for Ilampirai to organize such an initiative which required a great support from volunteers and dental college students.

First of all, Ilampirai takes this opportunity to thank the students’ team from Government Dental College who whole-heartedly agreed to be a part of this initiative. The team consisted of around 10-12 students and 1 professor from the Government Dental College. Some new hands joined this time with Ilampirai to volunteer for this service and to strengthen the Ilampirai team. Also, we had the required co-operation from the support staff at the school for organizing this camp.

Ilampirai team reached the school at time and made sure that the required facilities have been done to facilitate the dental camp. Two spacious rooms had been allotted for the check up. The team provided the basic requirements to the doctors like drinking water, water & dettol to sterilize medical equipments and garbage bucket to dump used cotton and other disposable stuff.

The check-up started on a class by class basis starting from the Kindergarten to 8th standard.  A basic check up was done by a panel of students in the first room. Based on their diagnosis, the prescriptions were provided in a slip which was taken to the other panel of doctors in the next room.

The second panel of students examined the children based on the slips that were given to them and were advised on basic cleanliness like gargling water and brushing. The children who were found to have dental problems were asked to visit the dental hospital the next day. The staff available for each class collected the slips from the children.

The students’ team expressed their happiness for being a part of this activity and provided an assurance to support us for such cause. The team started from the school after having their lunch.

In the second part of the day, we had a discussion with Mrs.Uma who is taking care of the Siragu Montessori School. We discussed on how the idea of starting a school for children from begging community came into existence and the various hurdles faced during the process.
Mrs.Uma explained that most of the development activities are taken care by getting loans from banks .The outstanding debt amount is nearly 50 Lakhs and they are trying to repay the loans slowly. She emphasised on the fact that the continuous support to these homes is what inspires them to do more to these needy children.

When inquired about the health & hygiene of the children, she admitted that since the children are coming from a community where medical facilities are scarce, the children are indeed frequently getting ill. She also told that these children are not being given the allopathic medicines unless the situation is worse. In most of the cases, they are practicing the natural way of healing by giving them proper rest. Though this seems to be a measure to avoid side effects due to the medicines, still it can create some serious complications in children.

Ilampirai Team mentioned that they saw a boy begging at road signal. He was one of the students of the school. Uma told with regret that the parents of these children are not allowing them to go to school on weekends and instead they were sending them for begging. She also said that few of the children are very mischievous and they need to be given special care. Some of them go around breaking things and it had become difficult to keep them under control. The discussion gave various insights into the way the school is run and the practical difficulties involved.
Later, we spent the rest of the day with the school children entertaining them. Most of them were able to identify us from our previous visit. They even remembered the team names that they had kept. Each of them expressed their talents like music, dance, karate, etc.., Finally, we distributed biscuits to all the children and started from the school back to our homes.

To sum it up, it was a great first initiative and gave us the inspiration to conduct many more such visits.

The Team!

Written  By - Param