We woke up really early today. Everyone was feeling very excited and nervous because today is the big day. We were going to the public school as well as the home to teach the children.
During the morning brief, we assigned many different ICs to let everyone takes responsibility in this communal living experience. We had a Kitchen IC, Boys toilet IC, Girls toilet IC, Dustbin IC and Water IC. The members volunteered themselves and we would change the ICs after 7 days so that everyone would get a chance to lead.
Once we’ve reached the public school, everything was out of our expectations. The children were really enthusiastic to see us and they all came to shake hands with us. Even though we met the children at LHCH yesterday, it was still a surprise to see so many children eager to meet you. The children were being divided into different grades – 1&2, 3&4 and 5. For each class, there was a translator to help out throughout the 3 hour session. Jacqueline and I, together with the Programs head (Michelle) and Logistics head (Jesse) went to each room and see if the members required any help. Each class has about 60 children and that was a challenge for the members. The first hour was mostly spent playing ice breaking games and teaching cheers to let the children warmed up to us. For the remaining time, we empowered them with the knowledge of teamwork, public speaking and enthusiasm and attitude. The lessons were conducted through games and actions to get the children interested and easily understood.
In the afternoon we went to LHCH for our evening lessons with the children. We divided the children into 6 groups based on their grades. The 6 groups were allocated to different stations of Personal growth, Hygiene, English, Creative, IT and Sports. Each station lasted for 45 minutes and afterwards they would switch stations. As we had the experience from the public school in the morning, the members were more confident in empowering the children. It was very heartening to see the smiles on the children’s faces when they were drawing and or when they managed to solve a puzzle. As one of our main objectives for this project is to impart IT skills, we placed a lot of effort in ensuring that IT lessons were conducted properly. For today’s lesson, we taught the lower level children about the parts of the laptop and to let them type out their own name. Compared to the children in Singapore, the children in the home do not have exposure to technology at a young age so it was like a very impactful first time experience for them. As Dhiraj told many of the members, it was probably the first time that the most of the younger children have touched the computer as previously he was afraid that they would spoil them.
I felt that the members did really well for the lessons. We were only in Bangalore for 2 days and the members had to give 100% to the children. The commitment of the members and creativity of the members really impressed me and I’m looking forward to the rest of the project.
