Celebrating the true Spirit of Independence

Every Independence Day brings to all of us a sense of pride for our nation and helps us celebrate its spirit. This Independence Day was very special to me ,it was my first Independence Day with Sahaya.

It was an apparently gloomy day but, the tri colours dancing in pride across the streets and the people commemorating sacrifices of the legendaries brightened up the day. The spirit of independence was in the air. To celebrate this spirit we Sahayans gathered at ZPHS,Kukatpally. As we entered the school I was elated to see the huge ground of the school swarmed with ebullient children breaking the barriers of colour, creed and religion to celebrate the Independence Day. The event started with the Flag hoisting followed by the march past of the NCC cadets with discipline as its decorate. A welcome speech by the the Principal and message from Chief Guest followed. Later there were some foot tapping dance numbers, the patriotic songs sung by the students and speeches given by the children which though crude, roused the patriotism amongst the audience. Next the alumni of the school shared their experience on how they excelled in their 10^th and encouraged their peers to to do equally good or even better and make their teachers proud. Each and every secondary classroom was beautifully decorated for the independence day, each special in its own way. Some classes made portrays of freedom fighters, while others made a vibrant rangoli of tri-coloured Indian map showcasing blossoming talent and patriotism.

After the children dispersed we Sahayans had a quiz competition followed by a group discussion in which all the volunteers enthusiastically participated(or were forced to J). The quiz was fun and meticulously organized. Cheers to the organizing team!!!.

And thus ended one of the most memorable Independence day in my life. I’m happy to see Sahaya toddle to free the Mother India from the shackles of illiteracy… celebrating the true essence of Freedom for India. And I am proud to be a part of it.

A Day with lots of smiles | Independence day celebrations

To see a smile in someone’s face because of me/you really feels like heart rippling. It was a great and touching moment for us to see a bunch of smiles which made the thirst for our cause more stronger and I don’t have words to express the feeling that we all had.

The smiley day was 13 August, 2010, the day which made us feel richer than a prince(ss). We had all the kids

assembled together and were properly assigned volunteers. Even though there wasn't proper space inside the event place, all the kids were well managed throughout and it made me to remember the schooling days.

A cloudy Friday morning at ZPHS Shamshiguda volunteers scrambling about… “Do we have enough copies of  question papers? The answer papers are here! Yes, enough for everyone. Which classes to go first? Is the event place big enough???….”

Actually forgot to mention one thing. Actually I was kinda blown away when the kids asked me ” how are you ? ” giving me shake-hands. A really nice welcome.

About the event itself, lemme introduced you the innovative and intresting round names introduced by Election
and his team....

Round #	Round Name	Description	Number of Questions	Points
Round 1	AdukkoCheptam	We wil ask questions related to Politics, Sports, Movies	15 Questions, 3 per team	10 points for direct Q. 5 points for passed Q
Round 2	WordMaster	Team has to pick a letter from chits. The team has to tell words start with the chosen letter within 1 minute. They also have to spell the word.	5 Questions, 1 per team	Total 4 points per word. 2 for word, 2 for spelling.
Round 3	Gajini	One student per team is chosen for this round. Students will be shown some objects for 30 sec. Now they will be given 1 minute to write down the objects they have seen.	1Question	1 point for object
Round 4	VikramBethal	We will tell a story of famous personality and ask questions from the story. One story per team.	15 Questions. 5 per team.	5 points per question
Round 5	PustakalaPurugu	We will ask questions from academics(Social, Science, Maths)	9 Questions, 3 per team	10 points for direct Q 5 points for passed Q.

After the preliminary round we sorted out the best 5 from each class making 5 teams each consisting of 5 = 5teams, 25 members.

With these 5 teams Sandeep and amer started second round AdukkoCheptam. Audience  cheering for their favourite team alon with shakel... had a great fun time.

In the same way sundeep and his team done with remaining rounds..... the rounds kids enjoyed most was GAJAJNI round. Kids were given 1 i time to see n remember 25 items and they need to write those items on paper. 

And the other most interesting part of the day was kids were decorating their class rooms for independence day celebrations to be held  today.[15 Aug]. 

  

at the end 

it was 

A day with lot of smiles........

Rain seems to kickstart ZPHS Kukatpally, moosapet, Gowdavally n Shamshiguda too :)

It wasn’t one of those perfect sunny days. In fact the day was a rainy one with flooded roads and traffic blocks everywhere which could make one lazy and lethargic and not really enthusiastic, especially if it was for doing something voluntary. Despite all this the first day of official SAHAYA beginning for the year began and ended on a great note. Amazingly all the volunteers turned up braving all the odds and bad weather. The dark depressing cloudy day was soon forgotten on seeing the curious cheerful bright faces of the children. All the kids (6th, 7th, 8th and 9th standards/grades in school) were excited to meet us and likewise the volunteers were equally excited at meeting them for the first time.

The days surpriizing moment is call for a meet by the school managment of ZPHS kukatpaly. We provided them with te years agenda based on the lessons we learnt past years and received few suggetions not exactly few bt many. Surprisingly, the aproach from management was really +ve and the meet session was just like charging up our enthusisam and buiding up confidence in us. Their suggetions and proposals were as same as our objectives and year agenda and are lot more about life skills motivation. After this exciting meet all the volunteers were having great enthusiasm and were very eager to start off the days great session.By the time it was lunch break and after Rajsekhars great efforts in allocating volunteers to all the classes not just in ZPHS K bt in Moosapet too. We all dispersed just for lunch and again grouped up for commencing the days most awaiting session.

The icebreaking session began with the usual introductions but with a twist. It was just like as below. After this exciting beginning, all the kids introduced themselves with great enthusiasm.

Volunteers in 6th and 7th faced the same experience as if they were in boxing court with 50-60 students fighting them.:-)

As a solution we took them to ground for a playing games.

Current Expression: 

hurreeey by kids:-).... 

and huffffffffff by volunteers....:-/

With some re leaf  we divided them in to teams to play Co-Co.

The cheerful kids with their enthusiasm and energy levels especially in the Co-Co game and volunteers along with newbies were great and had great day. The not so perfect day ended on a great note with each of the volunteers having had lots of fun, more then fun they had great challenges in first session and looking forward with eagerness towards spending more time with these little ones.

BANG ON

Third year of sahaya saw a great response from the people who broke the barriers of cast, creed and religious differences and came together to empower little kids through education so that such superficial things would not influence their decisions and judgments in the future. Number people turned UP for joining SAHAYA this year.

We started off, BANG ON this year with cricket match with volunteers who out played and the other week we started induction in 3 centers with bunch of volunteers who were more enthusiastically turned up dedicated sweethearts filled with gusto. The induction went smoothly; with kids welcoming the teaching volunteers with warmth and helping us bring a sense of mission and purpose in our lives.

This year goes like this

English Project:

The English Project is the primary project that SAHAYA runs in every centre that we engage with. The following are the details of the project.

SAHAYA uses the ENGLISH for schools curriculum, a basic Series for teaching English, prepared by SAHAYA editorial team. This consists of various levels of program.

Computer Project:

Through the Computer Project we hope to teach basic computer skills.

Personality development and awareness:

These are structured awareness and exposure building programs. Every month, specific programs are organized towards career awareness and general awareness including workshops,talent programs etc. They increase general exposure, give the children an idea of various career and higher education options and also motivate them to perform better by understanding the various opportunities that lie ahead.

SCHEDULE

• 7 active months in a year
• 2 sessions per week, each 2 hours long
• 7 months X 4 weeks X 2 classes = 56 classes a year = 112 hours / year

So Sahaya 'ns be creative, give out your best with great enthusiasm. Volunteers enroll every class in log books that will be maintained by School heads and post your feedback in orkut and blog with out failure on the same night. Feedback format in orkut posts will be revised soon based on syllabus that we will be following for this academic year.

Cheers SAHAYA 'ns......:-)