Samiksha Foundation Blog

On Thursday, August 26, we organised a party for six children in the ward whose birthdays were in August. This was a quiet affair, as many of the children were quite sick. However, the party did go off well, with plenty of singing and some games. I had my shiny red sequined hat on, which was much sought after by the children.

From now on, instead of conducting a party for all the children whose birthdays were during the month, we plan to give each of them a small gift on their actual birthdays. This will give them greater joy than having to wait for a party to be conducted at the end of the month, along with others.

Since it is the holiday season, there has been a lot of movement of visitors in and out of the wards. We have observed that many of these distribute bakery products, which has not gone down well with the doctors and the children’s diet. So, this time, we decided to bring about Fruit Awareness, and gave out moosambis to those in the ward instead.

We are also proud to say that one of our children, Ayesha, has been learning magic from the stage magician Nagendra, and will be on TV this week. She will also be performing for the other kids at Samiksha before she gets discharged this Saturday.

On our documents section, under Reports, are writeups by Ms. Melanie Mendonza and Ms. Priyanka Minz, who were volunteers with us over the summer (May 2010). In them, they describe their experiences working with the children at Samiksha. Take a look.

We  are proud to share the testimonials of our little friends, staff and volunteers on our website and blog pages. These have been with us for a while, and we debated as to whether they should be shared on a public platform. Finally we have been able to take this decision without hurting the sentiments of our beneficiaries (in legal terms).

The children at Samiksha are happy to have written these notes to us and have given us permission to keep them with us and print them on to our website as part of our work. Soon these will be up on a link called ‘Testimonials’ under “Stories we have to tell”

Thank you all!

Cheers!

This june, we had 12 children celebrate their birthdays. With kids ranging from 6 years to 14, it was an amazing day. We had our usual singing, storytelling and gift exchange. (This is always the best part for them). However, this time it was different. The batch was very mature and well behaved inspite of the celebrations. They participated without getting hyper. For Samiksha foundation it was a time to celebrate our teachers at Kapoor ward who had completed one year working there. When the children were asked to thank their teachers, they spontaneously broke into a huge cresendo of singing , welcoming our teachers- Vidyawathi and Parvathi. When felicitating our Yoga teacher – Swami Yogaratna, they sang all the songs that she had taught them without any prompting and it was an emotional moment for us. Everyone shared hugs and small stories about themselves.

The family of Saraswathi and Ramesh , Sashi Venkat were guests at the celebrations and we are grateful for their contribution. After 2 hours we had to actually tell them to go back to the wards and get some rest.

The party was sponsored by Ms.Shashi Venkat and her mother. We really appreciate their gesture.

Everyone had a happy and peaceful  afternoon!

On Thursday, June 3, actor Mukesh Rishi visited the children at the paediatric ward in the Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology as a guest of the Samiksha Foundation. He spent around 40 minutes interacting with them and looking at the work they had done under the auspices of the Foundation. The children showed him their schoolwork and drawings, and also treated him to a couple of songs.

Dr. Manjari invited Mr. Rishi and accompanied him to the ward. Dr. Shobhana and Mrs. Meera ably acted as interpreters between the children and Mr. Rishi, and Mrs. Vidyawathy and Mrs. Parvathi, as always, organised the activities for the day for his visit.

The Samiksha Foundation would like to thank Mr. Rishi for taking an interest in its work and spending time with the children, who were very happy to meet him. We would be honoured if he could continue this association with the Foundation.

Pictures of this day can be seen on the gallery or the Picasa page.

Thanks to the enthusiasm of Thishya and Karan, the children had a great Sunday morning doing origami, the art of making forms by folding paper. Over three hours, they made enough to fill up an entire gallery. There were some very quick learners who were thrilled with this exercise and can’t wait to try it again.

Six of the children in the ward at Kidwai had their birthdays celebrated with us on Saturday the 8th of May. We started off with our usual program, with Swami Yogaratna’s blessings, and then yoga and kirthan singing. Then, the storytellers from Kathalaya, Ambika and Manjula, took over with some interesting stories and origami activities that kept the children smiling throughout.

Stuffed toys and books were given as gifts to the children, who were born in April and May. They were: Santosh, aged 13; Kiran, who is now 7;  6 year old Latika, who came to the party with her IV drip, looking serene and calm; Lokesh, also aged 6, who was full of excitement; and Jeevan and  Tilak, who turned 4 and seemed rather lost. Our new volunteer, Punith, helped out with the party and the program.

We also took this opportunity to distribute our new lot of school kits to the children, as most of the old students have left. At this time, we have  also observed that more than 20 of the children are under the age of four, making it difficult to include them into the main education program with the older ones.

We look forward to good ideas and sponsorships for the June/July birthday party. Happy birthday once again to the six summer  children!

On Saturday the 8th of May, we plan to have a birthday party for six of our children who have their birthdays in April and May. It will be from 2:30 pm onwards, immediately after the yoga and art class. Kathalaya will have a storytelling session with the children between 3 and 4 pm.

We request those who have recently expressed interest in the Foundation’s work to come and be a part of the celebration. We will also be distributing our next round of school kits on this day.

We would greatly appreciate sponsorships for this event as well as our other upcoming birthday celebrations.

Truckloads of information have been carted onto the foundation’s website. Please take a look.

• Information on volunteering at the Foundation has been elaborated. It can be found on a new page, titled What You Can Do.
• Details for sponsors, including bank information and specific one-time and monthly program requirements have been listed out on the Be A Sponsor page.
• Our three Areas of Action have been moved into our vision statement.

We request you all to become fans of the foundation’s Facebook page: This will help you keep updated with our blog posts and other news.
The new address for the Facebook page: www.facebook.com/samikshafoundation