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Dec'06 - May'07 - Dec'07
Rainbow News Bulletin
On May 29th and June 6th two picnics were organized at Monobitan – a beautiful children’s park on the fringes of the city. Sharine describes the day.
“Monobitan – a beautiful park full of greenery and gaily-coloured flowers. Tall trees and the distant lake gave a special effect to the place. There were many kinds of joy rides such as swings, see-saws, merry-go-rounds, swing ropes, slides, children’s tunnels, bicycles and boats. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly on all the rides. We played to the point of exhaustion. The bigger girls rode the bicycles carrying the little ones at the back. We made a human train, by holding on to each others shoulders and choo-chooed our way through the caves and tunnels making loud train like sounds and whistles.”
Later in the year a picnic to Science City caused great excitement.
The Rainbows are frequently invited to films eg “Heerer Anghthi” and the “Ice Age” and many others.
Three Irish dentists, on the 5th of July, conducted a dental check up for all the Rainbow children. Free mouthwash samples and toothpaste were given to the children. Surprisingly, very few needed dental help, possibly because of the very plain but plentiful food and the fact that they get sweets at the maximum only on Sundays.
On the 15th 5 senior Rainbows attended an NCC camp at Kanchrapara. It was an austere, rigorous camp and our Rainbows were really put to the test. However they learned a great deal of survival tactics and social skills and their performance was rated as very good. In fact, the instructors found they were able to cope much more easily with their austere surroundings as compared with those from normal homes.
At the diabetic awareness camp, organized by ASHA on the 12th August, 50 Rainbows attended, participated and learned a lot about the problem.
On the 18th August the usual “mothers” meeting revolved around the theme “HIV / AIDS” awareness and preventions. A film show on the topic followed by a question answer session proved very stimulating.
A new development is our Sunday afternoon competitions. Sunday afternoons tended to drag before but now all is bustle and hustle and laughter as the children prepare for an interesting contest each week. We began with a fancy dress contest in which each group was given one newspaper, 20 straight pins and some crayons to create a costume and dress one of the little ones in it. We had one entrant from each group and the child had to introduce herself and explain what she was representing and if possible sing a song or recite a poem. It was amazing to see even little ones like Priyanka able to get up and introduce themselves and say what they were, all well prepared and tutored by the older children. Other afternoons went on making alpana designs, creating useful objects out of waste (we had computers, fridges, even Harry Potter’s Hogwarts Castle !) and inter-group games such as carom board contests. Nobody noticed where the afternoons went, life was so interesting !
On 3rd October the Red Cross conducted a free blood check up for over 50 Rainbows. Thank God, no one was found with anything serious.
Once again the Rotary Club of Victoria had organized Sarat Parikrama, a daylong Puja pandal extravaganza. Over 100 Rainbows were invited to a ceremonial flag off at Safari park, and treated to a day of joy rides and pandal hopping.
November began with the celebration of Diwali when the children lit little candles and decorated the entire school like a fairy land ! After a special dinner, the evening was enjoyed with many different kinds of fire works and sparklers. The children sat in their groups and each group got an equal number of the various kinds of fire works available and shared together, so no one was left out and all enjoyed themselves, the tiny ones being helped by the older ones and protected so nobody got burnt !
Among our many activities, the older Rainbows are now working with Hidden Domestic Child Labourers and run several drop-in centres in the afternoon.
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