Neeta Pillai
ANDHERI, MAY 7, 2012: The children's summer vacation got off to an enthusiastic start with a fun-filled summer camp, held from April 17-30, 2012. The session began with collage making. Each child was provided with a map of India and asked to make a collage out of it. It was gratifying to see how each group managed to convey their vision of India with their unique creations. Other activities included Art, Dance, Best out of Waste, Singing, Street Plays, Personality Development, Yoga, Public Speaking and Sports like Football for boys and Skipping and Frisbee for girls.
For most of the sessions, external resource persons were invited, who were not only experts in their own field but also loved being with children. Most of the children who participated in the camp belonged to overcrowded slum communities with scarcely any space for any form of recreation. Everyday when they entered the big boarding hall of St. Dominic Savio School, there was no one to stop them from running around and thoroughly enjoying their play time and play area.
Along with fun activities and games, videos were shown to make children more aware of their surroundings and yoga sessions were conducted to make them more aware of their self. On the last day of the camp, the children voted the Arts session as the best liked one, followed by dance and street play.
More than two hundred and fifty children participated in the twelve day camp with an average attendance of twenty five to thirty children per day. This summer camp was an attempt to open up the world of these vulnerable and marginalized children to some new, creative and fun-filled activities.