A day at Sweekar Upkaar

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I have been celebrating new year’s eve all these years with  friends and family. This time I decided to spend it with some special children.

I had collected few gifts from my friends – like   teddy bears, photo frames, gift articles, a beautiful watch etc. and I wanted to give them to some mentally challenged kids. I spoke to the PRO and the staff of sweekar upkaar about my idea of giving those gifts to the inmates of that institute on the 31st Dec. They readily accepted and they even planned  few fun games for the children. The idea seemed very good and I asked them to plan for atleast 10 programs, so that we could give away all the gifts that I collected.

I shared this idea with my teammates at office and they were more than happy to join me. So, Rhoda Wiliams, Deepthi Gulla, Sridinesh Kolluru and Arvind Shivaramakrishnan and I went to sweekar upkar at around 1:00 PM on 31st Dec. We took goodie-packets which consited of  biscuits, chocolates and wafers made for 200 odd kids as suggested by the staff. My whole team was very excited to see the reaction of the kids there. Mrs Sunitha, the principal of the school took us to a large hall with a stage at one end. Children applauded loudly with joy when they saw us. I realised for the first time that Sweekar upkaar is not only providing education but health care also to all age groups but not only to the kids. It was a group of  100 odd inmates which consists all age groups, the dedicated teachers of this institution and parents of those kids.

Teachers selected 5 kids(boys n girls) in each group to participate in different type of  fun games as per understanding level of the kids. the kids were participated with so much excitement in all the games. They were cheering for each other. We had organized few events like  ‘eating banana’, ‘throwing a ball into a basket’, “memory game’,’ ithreading a needle’, ‘sticking bindis on the faces’ etc.  The program lasted for approx 2 hrs.

A special mention to the one of the inmates Mr Gouri Shankar…he came up with a really surprising package. He has impressed the whole audience with his art of tabla playing. I am really thrilled to say that he was playing varities of  beats on tabla. The way he was playing tabla inspite of having such a health condition is really very good. We all were so thrilled.

When the event was going on in full swing, I realized and noticed one thing which actually made me re-think about myself. I was always thinking about the kids, but I never gave any thought towards the staff of that institute. When the event was going on, the kids were participating with so much enthusiam. May be the events we organised were very easy for the normal kids, but it wasn’t for those kids. I could not communicate with those kids. At this point I realised how great those teachers could be. They were treating those kids with so much care and affection. The way the teachers were encouraging and cheering for the kids was really awesome to look at. I was really moved by their effort. One can imagine how difficult it could be to teach even small things to those kids, where as so many parents think that teaching their own kids as a big task.

If I think I did a great job by doing such thing on “one day” , then how great those teachers and staff can be who are actually educating, taking care of those kids, providing the health care and trying their best to build the confidence in themselves to live their day to day life happily. I salute the great institute and staff for doing such a great job.

At the end we distributed the gifts to the 2 winners for each event. The kids were so happy and thrilled. Program ended by distributing the goodie packets to all the inmates. Deepthi and Rhoda were little disappointed cause they could give only 2 combo packets to each kid.
The event was a big hit… All the children  went home happily wearing a broad smile on their faces. The principal Mrs. Sunita, then took us to the office room and explained us about the whole working of their organization, what they do and how they do it, while we were having tea offered by her.

At the end we all were very happy. All of us went back home with satisfied and a sweet memory to last our lifetime! We can never forget the way they applauded and welcomed us when we entered the hall, and the way they were trying to shake hands with all of us while they were leaving after the event.

Me and my team would like to thank  Mr Murthy, Mrs Sunitha  and all the staff who made this possible. Thanks a lot to the Sweekar Upkaar.

And a special thanks to my dear friends who encouraged me by giving  away such valuable gifts and my teammates Rhoda Williams, Deepthi Gulla(Ratnam), Sridinesh kolluru and Arvaind Shivaramakrishnan who made this possible.

 

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