Programs
Details of our events can be found on our blog.
We are looking for:
- Resource partners in the areas of theatre, music, puppetry and storytelling for our programs.
- Tutors for the State Board syllabus, especially in Kannada and the sciences.
- Translators, between English and Kannada, Telugu, and Bengali, particularly for our yoga program.
Programs in collaboration with oncology hospitals
Education Program for Inpatients
We volunteer four times a week at Kidwai Memorial Hospital's paedriatic ward (the Kapoor Ward) to bring the children up to speed with their schooling. Our structured tutoring and activities began with the new school year. After 3 months, we successfully arranged special one on one tutoring for all children from 6th to 10th grade. Details can be found in our first quarterly report. Our second report is in the making.
Our volunteers teach the children, one-on-one for the older students and in groups for the younger ones, so that they can continue their education even while in the ward. 34 of the children in the ward have gone back home, and returned to school since June 2009.
Our thanks to our volunteers, to our librarian Ms. Vidyavathy for their work and support and to the authorities at Kidwai Memorial for their cooperation.
Trunk of Books
We bring books and educational material to the hospital wards. These are rotated once a week. The children are encouraged to write reviews of the books they have read. This program is in collaboration with the Hippocampus Reading Foundation.
Yoga Program and Creative Visualisation
Swami Yogaratna Saraswathi has developed a Yoga Program for our kids. This is conducted at least once a week at the wards. The program involves creative visualisation techniques and art therapy, in addition to the yoga sessions, as a means of self-healing for the children. The creative visualisation process is carried out based on the guidelines of Carl and Stephanie Simonton. Art therapy and storywriting are being used as a part of this process, and we plan to incorporate theatre as well. The program gets the children to visualise combating their illness, and express this through a story or a drawing.
She also encourages the mothers and other caregivers to practice the exercises on all days at the ward.
I Am A Star
All children are special. In this program, we try to find out what each one likes and fulfil some of their wishes to make them feel even more special.
This program is currently in place at Kidwai Memorial Hospital.
Party Time!
We organise birthday parties for children in the wards as a monthly event. All children celebrating their birthdays in the month are honoured on this day. Our parties have had magic shows and music and we now plan to introduce theatre at such events.