Hello  friends  –  Greetings from all of us here at Happy Children’s Library, Seem.

The summer months have started and the now the more exciting six months are ahead of us – so a number of interesting programmes are proposed for the coming days. Here’s a brief of what’s been happening at Seem since December:

Activities during the quarter

Tuitions & Library sessions – the tuitions have continued throughout the winter, though at much smaller strength. The two teaching assistants, Rita and Anita – young women from nearby villages, have now been trained and are able to independently handle two junior groups, all of whom are younger than the library. This is a great help to Jaya who can now concentrate on other developmental activities. Kripal Bisht, who teaches the middle-schoolers has now become an integral part of the library, having been associated with us since Aug 2016.

Special coaching – This year, seeing the larger number of 10^th and 12^th board candidates, Vijay took additional classes for these children for 4 hours daily. He is now continuing with this for the competitive entrance exams like CUET/JEE etc which some of the children are taking.  It is indeed heartening that now the graduating children are aspiring for a better quality of higher education and career.

Dehradun exposure visit- The highlight of the quarter has been the much looked forward to annual exposure visit – this year to Dehradun from 03 – 07 Jan 2024.

A group of 14 girls and 6 boys from Class 8 – 12 along with 5 chaperones boarded a luxury bus at Seem. The bus was used for local travel in Dehradun and the return trip. Suitable and safe accommodation in Dehradun was arranged at Jaihind Academy, a facility run by Jaihind Project, an NGO.  We were provided 4 rooms with 22 bunk beds and 2 double rooms for the staff. Meals as required were arranged though a caterer and taken in the available dining room.

On the 4^th, the children visited the Uttarakhand Assembly and Vigyan Dham Regional Science Centre. The trip to the assembly went off very well and was a great experience for both children and adults. The Vigyan dham was also extremely educative with a large number of interactive models and a mini science workshop session by Dr Rawat. The day ended with a shopping trip to Paltan Bazaar.

The next day the children undertook a Doon heritage walk through the old city starting from Guru Ramrai Darbar, a magnificient and well maintained monument and learning about the history of the city.  This was followed by a trip to Forest Research Institute conducted by Lokesh Ohri, a respected naturalist and his team. The day concluded with a theater workshop and an informal interaction with Vineet Panchi, the moving force behind the Jaihind Project.

The last day included a 6KM guided walk through Rishikesh till lunch, followed by an evening visit to  ‘har-ki-pauri’ in Haridwar, where they attended the ‘ganga arti’ and collected ganga-jal for their homes.   

Jaihind Academy & Vidhan Sabha

Doon walk & Forest Research Institute

Rishikesh & Haridwar

Korean experience-  Aditi, a young friend based in Ranikhet arranged a full Korean experience for the children explaining the history, geography, culture and cuisine of her maternal country along with the similarities and  dis-similarities with India. This was a great learning for the children who then realized that there is more to Korea than BTS !!

The session was concluded by preparing Korean street food in the library itself and everyone relishing it.

Korean experience

Chirag team visit – The library hosted a group of ‘baal-shikshaks’ from the CHIRAG education team to guide them on the use of stories as a teaching tool. Thereafter, they also interacted with the children and got some hands-on exposure.

Sriram was so happy to interact with the children, that he has promised to visit again and help the kids develop software coding skills.  

LeTS Session

Holi celebrations – The festival of colours was celebrated at the library on 23 March.  As always women from Seem, Dhon, Byasi and Darmadi attended the festivities amid song and dance.  While the children also attended and applied colour to all, this was one occasion where they are forced to take a back seat and the village ladies held sway!

Holi Celebrations

Agnipath training – that was funded by Clearwater Analytics, ended in Nov but the applications were only invited in March.  The dates for the written test have not yet been announced but the candidates have access to the online practice tests and can take these at home. Some of them have used the training received to appear for the other similar competitive examinations.

Art based workshop – Samarth, who has been a great resource to the library, has started a regular art based workshop with a group of 16 children from Class 7 – 12 for two days every week.  The children are learning the basics of art, proportion, comic making and still life among other art based skills. Some of them have displayed great interest and promise to take up such creative careers in the future. This is planned to be a yearlong project.

Art based workshop

Linde CSR Sponsorship – Radhika, a friend and supporter, who had initiated an English enrichment programme in the past, successfully approached Linde Foundation to donate 15 tablets as part of their CSR programme for use in this project. Now we have a total of 22 tabs which are being used extensively by all the children.

Tablets being put to good use

Career growth – With more children completing their school education after attending the library for many years, we have tried to start some programmes to assist them for their higher education and career choices.

Filling of application forms – Vijay, who teaches the senior children conducted a session for filling online application forms for higher studies. Six boys and girls from Garampani and the library learnt and completed online applications for undergraduate courses using the tabs and computers available at the library.

Personal Interview training-  Sanjay, a visiting relative conducted a session on attending personal interviews with a group of children who are now venturing out after completing school. He briefed them on how to prepare, present and appear for interviews and group discussions and thereafter conducted mock interviews with each one.  The session closed with feedback on their performance. 

Career growth programmes

Taekwondo & Yoga – This has taken off big time and now the toddlers have also joined.  We have almost 45 children from class 3 – 12 coming every Sunday and spending more than 4 hours learning taekwondo, yoga and some team games. Kits have been issued to each child and they attend smartly turned out for their training gear.

We have scheduled ‘belt examinations’ for some of the trained children on 14 Apr, when we hope some of them will gain their yellow and green belts.

Taekwondo sessions

We end with a positive news that Gaurav, who has been attending the library since class 5 has just appeared for his JEE examination – a first for the village and surrounding areas.  We wish him all the best and pray that he does well.

Goodbye then and have a great summer!