Our school kits consisted of a plain drawing book with good quality watercolour paper, a set of crayons, a set of colour pencils and a set of watercolours with a brush. Along with this, we provided two ruled books of one hundred pages each, a writing pencil, an eraser, a drawing pencil, a sharpener and a pen. The older children (above sixth grade) were given a geometry box as well. All this was gathered up in an eco-friendly bag made of recycled cloth in beautiful colours.

When we decided to distribute these kits at the start of the school year, we were told to hand them over to the administration at the site of our activities so that they could be safely locked up in a room and distributed to the children as and when the activities were conducted. But we begged to differ.

We wanted the children to have these things with them at all times and feel free to use them whenever they wanted. This way, they wouldn’t have to be restricted by the activities of the adults and the timings of our activities.
At the end of the distribution on June 18, we had given 60 bags instead of the 43 we had intended. Interesting remarks came our way, including “You’ll never see the kits again”, “They’ll come back empty-handed, begging for more” and “You’ve wasted your money”. Some people, in fact, thought we would distribute the kits and not return.

When we came back (as scheduled) the following week, some were surprised to see us. Most importantly, the moment the children saw us, they scrambled to bring their kits and show us all the drawings they had done during the past few days. About 30 of the 43 admitted children in the ward came in (with intact kits) for the program.