Hello friends!! Here’s the latest from Seem

Life is returning to normal with schools having re-started and examinations scheduled – so the library activities are being planned around the school timings. The younger kids, who have gone to class 4 have now very proudly started flocking the library, be it for tuitions or the library/activity sessions, so we again have an overflowing premises!!

Tutions

Tuitions for class 9 – 12 have continued throughout the quarter with about 20 girls and boys attending Vijay’s class before school starts. The breakfast snack continues to be served.

School exams are over, so now we have an increased demand for tuitions & activities, with 50 – 60 kids attending the evening sessions daily. Children from other areas have also started coming. As a result, the footprint of the library now covers 10 surrounding villages.

Zoom Classes in English- During the quarter we experimented with online classes in English. Suman, who is based in Ahmedabad, came online to take conversational English lessons on Zoom. For a start 4 children attended, sharing two tablets. While this was reasonably useful and the children wanted to continue, issues with bandwidth are a bottleneck. We are hoping that this gets resolved soon with the expected broadband/satellite connectivity and we can start such online classes with a larger number of participants.

Celebration of Republic Day 2022 – The day was celebrated with the singing of patriotic songs and dance performances by the children. It was also used as an occasion to distribute woolen sweaters and jackets – contributions from some well wishers in Mumbai and Pathikbhai from Ahmedabad.

Library elections – State Assembly elections were held on 14 Feb. The children had been observing the campaigning and had seen their elders voting. This was a good opportunity to teach them the basics of the processes involved.

They were asked to file nominations for position of library in-charge, prepare their campaign material and canvass for votes, decide on their choice of candidate and finally cast their vote. Three of the senior most girls stood for election and presented their campaign. Finally the children took an oath for conscientious voting and cast their votes complete with permanent ink marking on their fingers!

The votes were counted and Mahi, who was declared the winner, distributed sweets (provided by the library) and was carried aloft on the kids’ shoulders in a victory celebration.

We sincerely hope this will be a small step in teaching the children about proper democratic values.

Toy library initiative – a well wisher from Bangalore arranged for a whole lot of soft toys to supplement the toys available in the library with a good suggestion that we could start a toy library. The children were thrilled to see a stock of new toys and had a great time.

We hope to implement the suggestion of the toy library, where the children will be issued toys to take home, from April onwards.

Workshops

Theatre and Dance Workshop – These resumed after a long break in mid March. The children have enthusiastically taken off from where they’d left off in November. Nidhi & Jayesh plan to spend weekends at Seem with a focus on preparing suitable performances for the library’s annual day celebration in June.

Self defence & Safety Training (12/13 March) – on a request from some of the older girls during their visit to Seem, Tulika and Ajay sponsored a self defence workshop. Kailash and his colleague from Invictus Survival Sciences, Gurgaon held a 2 day workshop for about 61 young people from Class 8 upwards. We also had a few participants from some other NGO’s in the area.

The participants were explained various techniques of safe behavior and methods of self defence in theory and through practical demonstrations and practice. It was really heartening to see so many youngsters sincerely taking part for 6 hrs a day.

The response has been very positive and we have already received demands to arrange another such workshop, which we hope to plan later in the year.

Holi Celebrations – Holi was celebrated on 18 March. About 150 women and children gathered for an afternoon of fun and gaiety in the library. The highlight of the holi celebrations was a ‘face- off’ dance competition between the women and the girls, which was won by the women, hands down!!

A very enjoyable and energetic celebration was concluded with the distribution of sweets and savouries.

Films and Travelling Library – Sanjay, a film aficionado visited us on 29 March and held a screening-cum appreciation session with the children. He explained the basics of film making to them and showed some films from his huge collection. Each screening was followed by a short discussion on the film. The points raised and discussed by some of the kids revealed a lot of insight and it was an eye opener for us. We now have a collection of some suitable films for furthering this initiative in-house.

He also displayed a collection of children’s books from which the kids selected some for the library.

Visitors

Samarth – a very talented young friend spent two days with us and interacted with the children. He explained about graphic & digital art and aroused their interest. We hope he is able to conduct a basic workshop with the kids in the future.
General & Mrs Pavri – a veteran Kumaon Regt. officer and his wife visited the library and interacted with the children. We hope to use his help in arranging a motivational visit to Ranikhet and also to find some trainers and instructors.

Children from Chirag School – On 23 March we hosted 15 children of Class 5 and five staff members from Chirag School. They were very happy to see the books and toys in the library and interacted and played with some of our children.

Interns & Volunteers

A call for long-term interns and volunteers met with a good response and we have selected 3 young people to spend two/three months with us from April onwards. We hope they will be able to add value to what we have been doing here and also find the experience useful.

We also hope to utilize their time here to actively follow up on the long pending outreach programmes as well as to use their technological skills to make optimum use of all the audio-visual resources available in the library.

VTC

The vocational-cum-training initiative completed one year on International Women’s Day. To celebrate the occasion, the members of the SHG visited two other women’s livelihoods groups in Ranikhet. They saw the products being produced there and interacted with the members and office bearers to understand their working and management. Thereafter, they were treated to a sumptuous lunch before returning home.

These women spend more than 4 hrs a day at the VTC and have been continuously improving their skills and producing high quality products which are getting a lot of appreciation. A recent circulation of the product catalogue received a very good response leading to many enquiries and orders.

During the year each member of the SHG has earned more than Rs 15000/= in making charges and bonus.

IMPACT

With the annual results being declared before the start of the new session in April, we are very happy to announce that in general the first three positions in their classes have been cornered by children attending the library. Kudos to the kids and our tuition team!
As is the practice, prizes for good academic performance will be distributed during the annual day function in June.

In harmony

With this , its goodbye from Seem!