Interaction with the Future

Communication is independent of language and humans are not an exception; though I didn’t understand most of what the kids said (read I don’t know Kannada, the only language they speak), the smile on their faces communicated it all!

The visit to one of the Akshara Foundation funded schools this Friday was more challenging from my previous visits for we were only 3 and none of us knew Kannada. All earlier CSR events I attended had at least 15-20 volunteers and a couple of them knew the local language. As soon as we entered the classroom, we realized that we didn’t know how to get started; the kids too seemed hesitant seeing unfamiliar faces. Not that we were unprepared for this kind of situation, chocolates we carried came to the rescue and we decided that whoever introduced himself/herself or performed something would get a chocolate. It worked well as an ice breaking exercise and the kids became so comfortable after initial half an hour that they actually danced on a Hindi song (for the records, they didn’t speak hindi)!

We wanted to involve all the kids in non academic and fun activities because books accompanied them all other times anyways. The group consisted of all kinds of children, few were very enthusiastic about everything and a couple of them were not so extrovert. We recited poems, rhymes, names of days and months etc. and they were really good at it! Kids did very well in the  group activities but we also wanted to see how did they fare in individual assignments. We were told that (by the class caretaker) that they couldn’t draw things on their own but they could color them which triggered our next activity of having fun with colors! We drew some figures in their books which they had to color; to motivate everyone about the activity, it was announced that whoever did it well or faster will get his/her pic clicked. The announcement got them excited and now they associated coloring with the privilege of getting themselves captured in the camera which ensured full participation(this might not be a big deal for most of us but the kids were really fond of it.) Everyone had his/her own color preference and it was fun to see blue elephant, green water and several other creative combinations. Clap Clap

During the activities I realized why do they say some people have innate oratorical skills or someone is a born leader. There were many takeaways for us and I hope kids also learnt many things besides having fun! We realized how contagious a smile can be, reiterated that happiness is a function of inner feeling & confidence and is not much influenced by external factors, and had great fun. The overall experience was enlightening and I always find it good to share my experiences and skills with kids so they can make informed decisions about their future which eventually relates to nation’s progress and well-being of humankind.

P.S. Click here to access more pics!

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