Hi friends  –  Greetings from Seem ! 

Despite the disruptions due to the rains and roadblocks, the past few months were filled with a varied range of activities apart from the regular library & activity sessions and tuitions being held for 5 days a week.

So here are some details of what’s been happening at Seem : –

Some activities during the quarter

Monthly test for senior classes

Computer Classes – These continue as usual with some older girls from distant villages coming regularly and whenever the library children have the spare time.  From August onwards we have been able to get broadband connectivity, so now all the tabs and the 7 computers can access the internet easily and the smart TV can be put to effective use.  We are now setup to participate in online classes on a regular basis, for which trials have been conducted.

Library outreach –   we continue to support the primary school at Darmadi and have also been able to share the expertise of our resource people with Chirag School and Aarohi.

Sonal, took a session of fun science activities with children of class 4 & 5 of Chirag School and also shared her experiences and expertise at the ‘shiksha sahayak’ training at Aarohi.

Stencil painting   – Samarth did a painting workshop with about 15 kids from Class 6 – 9 on 20 August.  The children learnt a different medium of layered crayon painting and came up with some good designs.

Picture-story writing & book binding – Samarth also teamed up with Uma, a friend from Mumbai, to teach the children how to conceptualize and write short graphic stories and then bind them in different styles.  Such workshops help in developing and training the creative abilities of the participants.

Photography – Harsh a recent acquaintance from Bangalore, conducted a session on photography for the older children. They were taught and explained several nuances for taking a good snap and were divided into teams to practice those techniques and present their efforts to a critical assessment by the group.

Celebrations

Rakshabandhan – a number of children, big and small, turned up in the library and invited Atul, their ‘dadda’ to a rakhi celebration.  They tied rakhis, complete with aarti and got chocolates in return.

Independence day – the children celebrated the day with a presentation of patriotic songs and dances. Some of them, who had started learning about different bird species in the area, also presented their observations and knowledge of these.

The meritorious students were also felicitated for their excellent performance in the class X and XII board exams.

Janamashtami-  Festivals get celebrated at the library without any prior planning. On janamashtami, the toddlers turned up for a regular library session dressed as Radha & Krishna. There were enough gopis and gwalbaals to join them on the occasion!

World Literacy day – This year the children decided to celebrate this day differently. They went around in teams, talking to the elders and documenting their childhood experiences and also conducted some games for them and distributed gifts to the winners. They took the tabs from the library to capture their initiatives and presented their experiences and stories in a session at the library.

While the elders really enjoyed reminiscing about their childhood as well as playing games, the children were amazed that their grandparents could have also been young and as naughty once upon a time!

 

Indoor Games Competitions- in Carrom, Chess, Brainvita and Mastermind were conducted in Sept for middle and senior school children. Knockout matches saw a tough fight in all the categories and finally the winners & runners up were declared. Prizes will be given during the Diwali get-together. A memory game was also held for all the participants.

The tournaments in full swing and some of the winners

 Exposure Visit –  on 26th Sept a group of senior children attended the “Pahad ke Rang” art exhibition put up by Udhyam at Nathuakhan. The kids saw and interacted with the budding and talented young artists from the Fine arts faculty at Almora, who patiently briefed them. Such an exposure helps the kids learn more about the various other options open to them in future.

Visitors –

Dr. Shiv Sekri  – an educationist based in the US visited the library on 8^th Aug. He interacted with the children and engaged them in exercises based on ‘fun with math’.  The middle school kids had a great time and some of them are now hooked onto online math puzzles.

Manish Negi – We were happy to have Manish, from SBI Khairna branch, interact with the senior children on 4^th Sept. He shared his experiences in the Indian Navy and the banking sector and motivated them, informing them that he too comes from a similar rural background. He also shared some tips on financial awareness among the youth.

Shiv and Manish interact with the children

Volunteers – 

Sonal, who has now been with us for the past three months, has really been a boon to the children’s learning. She is an all rounder with interests in math & science, the environment, painting, photography and film editing, bird watching and wildlife among others.

She has engaged the children in all the above areas and they have really widened their exposure and skill sets. Now, it is a pleasure to see some of them confidently identifying and describing the birds of the area, tracking & studying the leopard and its kills and presenting their findings on different species of flora & fauna of our area. The library is now full of their art and craft work as well. We are very thankful to Sonal for her efforts and look forward to more such committed volunteers in the coming years.

She has also uploaded some of her interactions with the children on YouTube. Please see – Friendship Day at HCL ; Kids sing Japanese song ; “Chipku ped” 

Sonal’s students in the village and in the library

In the company of young technologically savvy people we too are up-skilling ourselves! – check out our YouTube channel at YouTube @ Happy Children’s Library ( and do what one is supposed to do🙂

That’s all we have in this newsletter 

Goodbye & have a great festive season ahead !