A journey called Unnati !

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Independence Day @ Unnati

Hey guys,
This is an Update of Celebration of Independence Day at Unnati written by our volunteer Srinivasan

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Dear Friends,

What a way to celebrate the 60th year of Indian Independence and the 150th anniversary of the 1857 Freedom Struggle! To quote that ‘in every crisis lays an opportunity’ would just be a formality.

The Independence Day celebrations began in the early morning hours of August 15, but the foundation for this ‘unprecedented’ event was laid a couple of days back by two spirited men; Sachin from EVS and Shankar from Hero Honda. Shankar had an idea that was aptly supported by Sachin. The finale was a soul-touching Azaadi ka Jashn with our very own Unnati. It was a pleasant surprise that the volunteers list was dominated by techies from Hero Honda. The support cast included the Guru Sumanji (and her daughter Priyanka), Manisha (EVS), Isha, Manoj Rathi (Market RX), Asutosh and Tarun (EVS), Rajesh khanaaji, Kashyap, Kamal, Akhilesh (all from Hero Honda), Harkeerti and of course, yours truly.

Sachin, Shankar and I landed at ground zero at 7.30 AM and were amazed to see the young and adorable kids waiting for us. Sachin and Shankar had intimated them earlier about a possible celebration and we could sense that the kids were pretty expectant as this was their first. We also overheard the localites that the kids were anxiously wandering around Unnathi since 6.00 AM in the morning. Sumanji Sr. and Jr. were energetic from the very beginning; they spread the colors of independence on a beautiful rangoli. I was assigned the task of calligraphy. I beautified the wall with the letters of ‘Independence Day’. Forgive me if the letters look twisted and tweaked in the photographs. Meanwhile, Sachin and Shankar made the necessary arrangements for the all important ‘flag-hoisting’. The landlord was very supportive indeed. By 8.30 AM the trickle of volunteers began and by 9.00 AM we were 10-12 in strength

Rathi bhai took up the task of teaching the kids the importance of the day. They displayed tremendous enthusiasm during the ‘class’. He egged them on the verses of ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’. By 9.30 AM they were ready for the finale. Isha and Manisha kept themselves occupied with the little ones. The live-wire Kashyap captured those fantastic moments in his Handycam. The entry of a huge box of jalebis signaled the beginning of the flag hoisting ceremony. As we all sang the National Anthem in chorus, the tri-color unfurled itself and started rattling in the wind, making us remember those heroes whose blood sweat and tears brought us Azaadi.

Soon after the kids tasted the mouth watering Jalebis and called it a day. A short round of volunteer introduction then followed. We then left the place with a sense of fulfillment. This is just the beginning. Time shall stand testimony to all future events.

I would like to thank all the volunteers for their whole-hearted support in making the event memorable. Others need not feel left out, there is always another day. Life is calling…where are you?

Jai Hind. Vande Mataram!

Yours truly,
Srinivasan

Chidiyaaa Udd.......

It was a sad day for Unnati...

Nishank was leaving Gurgaon....

He is heading to US for his higher studies.... However, we were happy too as finally got what he was waiting for..

Guess what, it was Eisha's b'day too....

Hurrey...

Party time!!!...

Eisha brought Paties, chips (i just love them...) and cake for everyone.... Awesome...

Children were also very happy...

Oh shucks!!.. how can i forget Dairy Milk...(I hope everybody remembers this one.. )

She got Dairy Milk for everyone.... :)

Ahem.. Ahem..well i shouldn't say but I was really very hungry... forgot to had breakfast in the morning... but got so excited when I saw so many things to eat... :)

You can say i was like this....


as if i was seeing all this for the first time...

He was a bit confused ye kya ho raha hai... mummy ne to bola tha school mei padai hoti hai... par ye to bohot acha school hai ... :)

Now see how happy everyone looks ...


Kuch baaat hai Dairy Milk mei....

Well this was not all... after the school was over and all the kids were gone it was time to show your skills... eh? skills...Now you will ask me what kind of skills....

Look at this....



Manish showing his skills....

Infact I must say he is very good at it..

I also learned from him that I should also start practicing it.... It can always help you as an alternate career option...

So after everything was cleaned it was time to sit together for a serious meeting.. humm.. AID Gurgaon was about to have a serious meeting....

Guess what... the meeting turned out to be 'Chidiya ud' competition...

Chidiya ud..
Maina ud..
Kauwa ud...
Bhais ud...

ud gayi ungli... Ooops I got out.. :(

But competition was still going on and all the volunteers were busy keeping their eye on their fingers ki kahi galat janwar pe na ud jaye...

One by one volunteers were getting out... and competition was getting tougher.. but in the end we had two champions...

Champ Manisha and Champ Eisha.... ( Clappings for their maiden victory... )

Well I'm practicing hard these days to win the next AID Gurgaon Chidiya Ud competition...

How about AID Inter Chapter Chidiya Ud competition... Its not going to be easy to take over the AID Gurgaon team..

Check out the AID Gurgaon champions...



Many people asked me that what is all this happening...

I think social service is not about just carrying jhola and moving everywhere... its about joining with people.. its about making good friends.. its about having fun ... its about spending fun time with kids... its about you.. its about them... its about all of us...

Its about bringing the change....

being the change...

I am proud to be the part of AID Gurgaon

Dance Dance Dance

Dance Dance

I just love dancing.. so when Shilpi told me that she can get her dance teacher at Unnati to teach dance steps to kids, I got excited...

Wow...

Dance...

I started waiting for the weekend when the dance teacher will be visiting Unnati...

I reached the class in the morning and this is what i saw:

Awesome... :)

Everyone was dancing :)

Even the boys were learning classical dance...

1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2,

All the hands in the class were moving on this rhythm...

Children were really loving it...

They even made Himanshu dance with their moves:



Check out our spiky :)

Doh!!.. what to say about him... Looks like he is trying to fly...

Tara and Durga came out to be the best dancer and in the end also showed their dance to everyone....


Well this was not the end... after the fun time it was time to study...

Eisha (our visiting teacher from outside India :)) started the class with numbers...

1, 2, 3, 4, .....6, 7, 8..

It reminded me of my childhood.. how hard it was to remember that 8 comes after 7 and 7 comes after 6.. ufff.... I really couldn't understand at that time that why can't the 8 come after 6!!!.. they are easy to remember, isn't.. aaah.. only God knows the reason..

After the numerical class it was my turn... and i started revising them about chuha...

RAT MAT CAT NAT ... i don't know what all...

Hey do you guyz saw... Unnati is now all changed... Have a look at the board... its changed from the black board to white board....

Check out our posters..

I would give the credit for all the changes that are recently going on at Unnati to Eisha... she is a Gem of a person... She is teaching the kids with full dedication..

Hats off to her..

Guyz.. Unnati is progressing!!!..

Spiky..

Hey people did i tell you about spiky...


Naah...

We have a child whose hair style is no less than hair styles of models..

I guess he can easily replace all the models in the Garnier hair Gel advertisement...

Here is our spiky...

Girls vs. Boys

First of all sorry, sorry, sorry...

I know i'm very late... but despite of all the efforts by this mean world to stop me... I am here to tell you about the Unnati's visit...

Well well, we started the day with some english class, teaching the children about how to greet a person when you meet them for the first time...

How du du du... (basically that means How do you do?)
I am phine, Thanku ...
Wat is yur name?

I hope from the title you all must have got an idea about what i'm about to tell you...

The WAR which is going on since years and still no decision has been made...

The historical war between girls and boys... We decided to finally make an end to it by having a hot competition between girls and boys...

Well everybody know that this is just a formality and its unanimously known that who should win... but we still thought of having it so that the other party feels comfortable... :)

If you guyz remember we had a similar competition sometime back in Mobile Creches and you know how won :)

Girls and boys were separated and Unnati was divided into two teams.... Girls were on the left side and on my right were boys...

Questions started...

Datto ko english mei kya kehte hai... Teeth

Sir ko english mei kya kehte hai... Head

Ungaliyo ko english mei kya kehte hai... Fingers

Girls .. Boys.. Girls.. Boys..Girls.. Boys..

and teams started answering one after the other... I was impressed by the way they were answering the questions...

Though both the teams earned the same points no. of points but boys were answering in a better way :)

Ofcourse

Well its obvious too.. :)

We raised the level of questions and the war started again...

Questions-Answers, Questions-Answers, Questions-Answers

both the teams were fighting and volunteers got equally involved in the competition...

Slowly, the competition which started with a close fight finally got completed when one team took over the other team with few points....

Do you want me to tell you who won...

Ofcourse Boys!!! :)

I know now people are going to kill me after reading this post.. :)

Happy Unnati!!!...

What do you think.....

Thanks to all the people who have been reading this blog regularly since its first few articles...

Now we would like to hear from you..

Please let us know about your experiences and what more could be done to improve...

Do you know the people behind...

Many people who visit the blog always want to know about the people who are involved in these projects....

Well there are many and what could be better than introducing them in to everyone.  So i thought of starting a series of posts about them.. about us... in which i will be introducing all of them one by one...

They are not different but they are still not the same... They are very similar to everyone but they still make a difference....

Would you too like too...

Today's volunteers are these two guyz:




The guy on the left is known as Rajesh (passionate about biking) and on the right Himanshu (want to be an entrepreneur in his life)...

Well everybody know that we had a plan to visit Unnati this Saturday but it was raining heavily in the morning . Many people didn't turned up due to this reason. Pretty obvious.. its not easy to go out in rain, and that too in the morning when you would love to have a tea in your bed...

But there are few for whom rain doesn't make a difference.

Himanshu came far away from Delhi to Unnati inspite of the heavy rain fall that morning...

Hey guyz, i guess many people doesn't know, Himanshu also takes care of our Finance, he is our so called Treasurar... Guyz who are interested in writing GMAT and want any tips, feel free to contact him.

Now what to say about Rajesh, we all know that how difficult it is to wake up early in the morning...... and that too on a weekend!!

Rajesh didn't sleep the whole night to keep himself awake so that he can visit Unnati the next morning... thats commitment..

You know what.. children call him Krissh.. (i don' t know why... I guess he must have really given lots of choclates to these kids for getting this name....Well bribery works everywhere :))

Rajesh has been affiliated with AID Gurgaon from a long time and has spent a lot of time in Mobile Creches. He is also amongst one of the initial members who got themselves involved in initiating the CSR activities in Evalueserve.

Creativity

Art....

Just check these out...

These children are really creative.....

What M.F. Hussain started doing in his old age.. these children are doing now..

A serious one.. with long black nose...


Smiling Mummy (from Egypt)...



Angry young man!!!...

lol...

What to say about this...

This is worth million dollars ($$$) ...




Look at one of the artist who drawed the above pictures...

Our cute small Sania Mirza...

Hurrey!!!!...

Now every child at Unnati has his/her own bag....

Thanks to Literacy India. They were really very helpful in everything.

hello

Cartooon Cartooon Cartooon

Everybody says its not easy to control kids.....

Who says??

I say you just need a camera and they would all turn into this...

Just check out the smiling lot.....


But here they are not because of Camera, but because of this:

Cartooooooooooooooooooooooooon.....

We all have seen a lot when we were kids..... so we thought why not they....

Check her out.... she is trying to make her place.....

You say kids... Now check them out...


Even they are busy......

Who cares what is happening outside.....

BUT.....

While everyone was busy watching, and i was enjoying seeing everyone, there was someone who is not interested......



Did you see him..... Can we do something for him.....


What more.....

Check her out........

She want to see everything herself......





So these are the kids.....

They are the one with whom we like to spend our time on weekends...

Would you like to....

Exploring the creative side of the children!!!

This Saturday at Unnati's school children's teacher couldn't come. So it was up to the volunteers as what activity we conduct for the children. Drawing sessions had been carried out from time to time. So we thought of doing something different.

Finally we decided to conduct a collage session for the children. It was a very new thing for the children. Even we had tried such kind of stuff long back when we were small. So it was sort of new thing even for us. But anyways we went ahead with it.

So we gathered the required things: chart paper, glue, old magazines and newspapers, scissors, etc.

Everyone busy with their work!!!

Initially it was a bit difficult to explain to the children as what was to be done. So we just asked them to cut different objects they can see in the magazines and paste them on the sheets.

Every work requires concentration!!!

To involve the children in a better way we pasted a blank chart paper on a board and asked the children to paste on their favorite photo which they got from the magazines.

Where will I find my favorite pic!!!

Children are also getting some help!!!

I need to hurry up!!!

See even I have found something!!!

Children pasting their favorite pics!!!

Here is the 1st masterpice!!!

For two other chart papers we gave a "people" theme to children where they could put pics only having people in them. And we got a great variety. Children had amazing choices.

A great work in making!!!!

And here is the 2nd one!!!

And finally the 3rd one!!!
Which one is the best??

After the collage work was done, children were asked to clean up everything. And they did it so diligently. These children are really disciplined.

See even I am helping in cleaning!!!

Let's finish the work fast!!!

So finally we are done with the work!!!

Now we want to fly away!!!

Celebrating those little moments at Unnati!!!

The previous Saturday we also showed Tom and Jerry animation movie to the children. Most of them must have never seen a laptop closely before. They were really happy to watch the animation show. A lot of things can be done with a classroom.

Every one watching keenly!!!

Who is smarter, Tom or Jerry:)) ??

With all these little initiatives, we are trying to fill the moments which these children would otherwise miss in their childhood. There are so things to enjoy, to learn for a child. But they should be given an opportunity for it. These children are no less talented than the other children who go to English medium schools and learn computers. What we need to do is to provide a good learning atmosphere for these children, which will help in creating a better future for them by enhancing both their academic and creative potential.

~~Nishank