An Act of kindness every day.... a Rhythm in every action

The highlight of the day was WALL-E ! We filmed the movie in one of the most modern classrooms even for some of us mentors to the program. We have had a very open response to the camp by all the students of IIITB.

Students of IIITB and the kids playing a getting to know game

At the IITB campus, there are 2 classroom which have 5 screens to enable people in every corner of the large space to be able to see the screen, so we watched the film WALL-E in the 5 screen make shift theater.

The Student Activity Council, The Movie Club, enthusiastic student volunteers, an employee, all together to make the screening happen, which the children enjoyed thoroughly. It was also a great way for them to be reminded of Lego Robot of IIITB which they had seen the previous day.

The students of the institute also spent time playing some games with the children. We had a birthday celebration and an impromptu short dance performance in the mess after dinner.

Kiran started the day with some exercises to wake the kids up.

Using the simple game of Chinese Whispers, the children learn the importance of hearing correctly.

Its all about listening - Aruna to Manjunath

Manu observing the reactions of the children

Kiran and Manu with the group trying to find out what went wrong?

The day for the children began with the YES program. The exercises got a little more challenging and deeper but also more physical and energy driven.  This session started moving into the area of self-realisation through a special meditation process.  It was pretty intense because when we met the kids at lunch time they were pretty tired and quite as well.

The second half of the day was another 2 hour session with Shabari Rao and Maitri. Today, all the actions the children had come up with in the first day’s exercises had been worked on by Shabari who created a simple dance routine which she taught the children.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Shabari and Maitri also worked on emotional feelings and their expression. The children were always happy to jump and act funny in front of the remaining group.

Shabari & Maitri 

The enactment of feelings and emotions by the group. Lina out volunteer also enjoying the exercise immensely

The early evening session was taken by Deepti Chatti, a researcher with TERI (The Energy and Research Institute) she has been extensively working and researching on issues related to water and its policy, and was happy to come in to interact with the children at short notice.

Deepti talking to the children about the exercises

Kumar drawing the earth and water ratio 

How is water contaminated? Manjunath trying to learn from Deepti

Through a very simple exercise she actually explained to the children at we actually have only 1% of all the water in the world which is usable water by all mankind so it is important to save water. The children also identified by themselves through a slide the various ways in which water is contaminated today.

At the end of the day, we had the children following their homework giving by the YES program – do make 2 new friends and 2 acts of kindness which the children took seriously. They were more open to each other and not shy of the students of the institute either – they were freely demonstrating the movements they had learnt at the workshop, and that too with a SMILE!

Lets do something fun !!!