Greetings from Seem on the occasion of our 10th Birthday. We reached double digits on 1st June and wish to thank you all for the encouragement and support you have given us throughout this eventful journey.
The busy summer months have flown by with a host of workshops, activities, visits and great news and there has hardly been any respite for all of us – so here are the latest developments at the library since April:
Activities during the quarter
Rishik – the quarter started with us welcoming a long-term volunteer from Kerala. Rishik, a filmmaker with a computer sciences background, will be at the library for the next 5-6 months. The older children have taken to him in a big way and spend most of their time at the library with him. While he has started basic computer classes for a few groups, he is teaching the older children various advanced concepts and software. He has also assisted the graduating students on application and admission to university. In addition, he is teaming up with Samarth to conduct workshops on story telling.
His performing arts background has played a major role in guiding two groups for the plays taught by Dramaebaaz team in April and finetune them for performance at the annual day function.
Another feature is the Saturday movie – he arranges to screen children’s movies and after the show there is a general discussion and appreciation session, so that the children learn about different aspects of cinema.
Rishik conducts his activities and movie screenings
Tuitions and taekwondo – these regular activities have continued as usual, though at a slower pace – having to give time and space to all the workshops and preparatory activities for the annual day. As usual the strength at the library increases with the children from distant villages and visiting cousins from the plains coming over for their summer vacations.
Board Results – the Uttarakhand class X and XII results were declared in April. All the children from the library passed with good marks. Tanuja (aka Tanu), appearing for Class X secured 94 % marks and stood 23 overall in the state. She has also excelled in sports and was selected to represent Uttarakhand for the 69th National School Games 2025-26 Cricket Girls U-17 .
Children move on – HCL has now also become a stepping stone for its children to move on to institutions for higher education and training. Over the years, 7 girls and boys have been supported for their graduation studies in colleges & universities of repute. Mahi Tanwal (Choti mahi) has joined BA Visual Arts Course at Banasthali Vidyapeeth and Kanchan Bisht (Kanchu) has joined MSU Baroda for BSc(Hons) in Environmental Science starting July this year.
In a first, Tanu was sponsored by some well-wishers to join Nanakmatta Public School in Nanakmatta (Sitarganj) for her intermediate studies. It was felt the grounding & exposure outside the local school would help her do even better. She has joined her Class XI on 15 April and has adjusted very well. We hope and pray she is able to fulfil her dream of joining the officer cadre of the Indian army.
Front row: (l-r) Pihu, Prachi, Kanha, Gauri (all at Purkal) Back row: Tannu(NPS), Bhum, Mahi, Akku (all at Banasthali) & Gaurav (SNU)
The library alumni
Internships – Mahi and Akanksha (Akku) were on summer holidays from college and took up a month-long internship at Chirag. Apart from learning what happens in a working environment in the development sector, they worked at the Chirag school in areas of their interest – education, music and dance. On their return, they presented their report to the children at the library and practically explained their learnings on springs and water at the village spring (‘naula’)
Internship @ Chirag
At the village naula
Tanuja felicitated & at the Tournament
The 4 younger kids who joined Purkal last September, were on their summer vacations and participated in all the library activities and the annual day. They are growing up to become confident youngsters.
Our children at Purkal
Dramaebaaz (23 – 30 Apr) – like last year, a three-member team from Dramaebaaz Foundation, New Delhi were invited to conduct a theatre workshop. Around 40 children trained in dramatics for a week, culminating in the performance of two plays (Bholeram ki aatma & Jungle Book) for the other children and a few guests and parents. These were then practiced and finetuned under guidance of Rishik and featured in the annual day function.
Dramaebaaz at work
Showcasing their learnings
Varun visits again (1 – 10 May) – the children wait for Varun each year and thank God, he never fails to disappoint them! Varun spent 10 days with us teaching the children various activities and songs and dance in his own very style.
Varun doing only what he can do!!
Interns from Azim Premji University (11 May – 5 June) – This year we hosted Saket and Pakhi, two students of MA (Education) from APU, Bangalore for their summer internships. They worked with the Primary School at Nauna in the mornings and spent time at the library in the afternoons.
Apart from teaching the children and conducting home visits, Saket taught the children a few interesting songs. Pakhi, who is also a trained Bharatnatyam dancer, was involved in theatre and dance. Her enthusiasm especially in the dance classes was infectious and exemplary. Both of them got fully involved with the children and participated in the run-up to the annual day.
We hope to host more such budding educationists in the coming years. See one of their contributions @ https://youtu.be/VT7_DZKnJw4?si=2sWrVqmkz7rsqw9o
Interns from APU
Tilak ( 17 May – 5 June) – we invited Tilak from Ahmedabad to train the children in different dance forms during his summer break. As usual all the children wanted to participate in all the dances, so Jaya had to draw the line and restrict participation to a manageable number. The children from all age groups learnt five forms of dance and these were then showcased during the Annual Day function. However, all the children learnt all the dances and a free for all would always be an end-of-day feature.
Dance lessons
10th Annual Day (05 June) – This year the function was celebrated on a weekday to avoid the weekend traffic bottlenecks. Volunteers and outstation visitors arrived a few days earlier and were fully engaged in arranging costumes and fabrication of props. For two days the premises looked like a theatre company’s godown. With predictions of inclement weather, the preparations continued with a prayer on our lips for the rain gods to hold on.
5th June dawned bright and clear and the final preparations started at 8 AM. The library was a hub of activity with costumes, makeup, props etc. The village folk and guests had already started congregating when, unfortunately the heavens opened up just when it was time to start. Everyone had to move in under cover as available – there was controlled chaos and to make matters worse it refused to clear up.
The library then became a space for bonhomie and upward of 125 ready & made-up children, guests and volunteers sang songs and tried to dance at one spot and enjoyed themselves thoroughly.
Around 12 noon it stared clearing up and preparations for a start were made. On popular demand, the programme was started in the rain, without using electrical power, as a safety measure, and with a makeshift cover over the bluetooth speaker. The starting performance, a bharatnatyam piece invoking Shiva, was performed to perfection and under the rain it was, in the words of a guest, ’surreal’. However, the rain let up soon after and the function continued as per schedule. All the performances can be viewed on our youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeH62lOuoslA
The programme finally concluded around 3 PM with the distribution of sweets to the children and local visitors and a very delayed lunch for the volunteers and outstation guests – the menu? you guessed right – chola bhtura and gulabjamun!
“Creating Stories”- Workshop by Samarth & Rishik (16 – 21 June) – in continuation of his involvement with the children on art for the past few years, Samarth and Rishik conducted a very interesting workshop combining storytelling and animation.
About 20 children from Class 6 to 10 were divided into 5 groups and were assisted to structure their own stories and add dimension to the characters. Thereafter they were guided to visualizing the stories and making canvases using locally available materials like stones, leaves, paper and the like. These were then photographed using tabs and stop-motion animation frames were developed. Sound was then created using available materials and added to the frames. The groups then projected their production to the rest of the children on screen and were evaluated on various aspects of content, framing, sound and communication. Samarth and Rishik will be taking a couple of more such workshops in the coming months.
Creative writing & animation workshop
Purkal Assessments (23-24 June) – a 6-member team came from Purkal for assessing children for their new cohort NJ9 starting Sept 2026. The library became a centre for some other areas in the district and about 20 children participated.
While the children were being assessed, the parents were interviewed to understand the backgrounds & need and finally home visits were conducted over two days. A final decision will be communicated to the parents around August for joining the school in September.
Purkal Assessments
Football (from 6 June onwards) – Sahayak Foundation a Haldwani based organization has started an initiative of bringing football to remote areas of Uttarakhand. They have started a regular coaching programme with us from 06 June onwards. They propose to teach the children basics of football and develop their competence in the game.
Football coaching
Visitors – Ankit/Vineeta – among the many visitors this quarter was Ankit, a cousin, who had gone to Antarctica as part of the Indian expedition to the south pole. So, we took this opportunity to arrange a short talk on the expedition and life in a totally alien research environment.
That’s all we have in this newsletter – so Goodbye, enjoy the monsoons & see you with the next update in October!
