Samiksha Foundation » Event Highlights

Birthday Party dec 1st

Sandhya — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 08:23:00 +0000

This November birthday party at the ward was different. Instead of us organising the event and calling resource people for magic show or storytelling, the children at Samiksha themselves decided to showcase their talent on this day. We had an afternoon full of dancing to latest kannada songs played on a mobile and solo dialogue performance, some recitation, singing by the kids . I had never seen them with such great attitude! ( They are always joyful, but this was really entertaining! I hope they were not too tired, ( they didnt seem like it), but we enjoyed ourselves a lot that afternoon. Thank you kids for the nice show and the happiness you spread around!

To see a part of it, visit our picasa gallery: https://picasaweb.google.com/happinessquotient/December5201102

Cheers!

An Exercise on Laughter

Sandhya — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 17:34:54 +0000

29th Oct 2011.

We organised a birthday party for 8 kids in the oncology ward. Our storytellers Anushri and Ambika started off with a beautiful Japanese Farmer story.The children listened enrapt to the story which had a different setting. They had a lot to imagine. Then they were encouraged to make little japanese hats with paper and straw. A simple thing that made them smile putting it on their bald heads.They wanted us to take fotos of them with these new hats. Then Lioness club of Bangalore West sponsored the event by bringing in some guests and distributed fruits to the children. Mrs. Bhatnagar donated handmade mobile pouches to all the children in the ward. Our special guest was – Member Secretary of a Laughter Club of Bangalore. She presented some interesting insights into laughter and its importance. With her skill and communication abilities she drew the kids out into peals of laughter and taught them some laughter exercises.

At the end of this short program, the volunteers at Samiksha, the guests from the women’s groups and children at the ward were seen smiling ear to ear. We realised the immense possibilities of laughter as an exercise!

We captured some of it on video.To see this and the pictures please go to:

https://picasaweb.google.com/happinessquotient/October292011StorytellingAndLaughter#5669335308163960402

https://picasaweb.google.com/happinessquotient/October292011StorytellingAndLaughter

Cheers to all our October birthday kids!

Birthday Party for Cancer Kids with Samiksha Foundation: Infosys Retail reach team

Sandhya — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:08:20 +0000

==========================================================================
A highly enthusiastic group of Infoscions from Retail Reach (Corporate Social Responsibility team of Retail, CPG, Logistics and Life Sciences Unit of Infosys Ltd) joined hands with Samiksha Foundation to share smiles with the kids undergoing cancer treatment at Kidwai Hospital. They volunteered their time and energy and were fuelled by the generous contributions from their colleagues.

The volunteers came well in advance to decorate the venue to create a birthday ambience. The event started with an invocation to a higher power. This was followed by a rendition of inspirational songs. The kids, volunteers from Samiksha Foundation and care givers all joined in and created a positive atmosphere. Anil KB, Delivery Manager, addressed the kids and exhorted them to surmount their current challenges and try to succeed in whatever they want to do. Volunteers organised fun games which the kids enjoyed, and went on to showcase their talents like singing, recitation etc. This was followed by a magic show which had the kids watching in rapt attention. A Quiz followed which had the kids exercising their grey cells. Volunteers then celebrated the birthdays of all the July born kids.
The event wrapped up with the team distributing gifts and goodies to all the kids in the various wards.

All the volunteers thoroughly enjoyed the experience and were happy to have shared joyful moments with the kids. Here is what they have to say…
“It was amazing to see that small acts of kindness can go a long way in putting smiles on the faces of little ones.”
“The kids were so excited about the whole event and they were all very enthusiastic to participate in all the events.”
“Kids at hospital were just like any normal children, fighting (literally) to choose the color of the birthday caps and other gifts:).”
“I enjoyed the naughty comments from the kids especially when asked Shivaji what he wants to become – he said Nityananda .”
“I am thankful that we got an opportunity to be part of such an event and it was priceless to see the kids all happy, laughing and smiling:).”

The group signed off the day by presenting a cheque to the Foundation towards professional story telling sessions for 6 months.

==========================================================================

Samiksha Foundation Team expresses its heartfelt Thanks to all those who participated, especially in person to make this event happen. The effort that the Retail Reach Team has put into this is appreciable. The children at Samiksha too offer their wholehearted smiles and gratitude. We hope that we will be able to work together again in the future!

Together we can make a difference!

Hoop Dreams – July 23

Sandhya — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 11:58:42 +0000

Everyone loves a good game once in a while. The children at the hospital rarely get to play a good game of cricket, or basketball, or football. Not only because they have a low blood count and get tired quickly, but also because there isn’t ever the space for this. On Thursday, July 23, at Samiksha, one of our volunteers – Manu (short for Manmohan Iyer), who visits us regularly from New York, arranged to get a designer basketball for each child at the hospital. 120 small basketballs were couriered by the Harlem Wizards team of New York to Bangalore.

On this day, a group of volunteers joined us at the ward and lined up as many kids we could find in all the paediatric wards at Kidwai Hospital. Each child was presented with a small ball with their names on it. Manu set up a basketball hoop in the play area and we got the children to shoot a few hoops. The volunteers – Shobana, Thishya, Thrishna, Sabareesh, Aparajita, Basavadatta, and all of us regulars ended up playing ball with the children outside the ward.

Imagine a hundred children with one colourful ball each. It was a sight to see the smiling faces and great to hear all the laughter ringing around the ward. Nurses and Social Workers joined us in the play and we all had a great happy morning! On that bright beautiful morning, a lot of dreams were realized.

Thanks to all who made this event so much fun!

Creative Projects in 2011

Sandhya — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 16:15:29 +0000

Since January 2011, we have been doing many creative projects with the children at Samiksha. Ms. Bina, an architect, conducted pottery workshops, where they made animals, pots and other figures with clay. Students from Mallya Aditi International School, under the supervision of their teacher Ms. Jhanavi Mohan, have been regularly conducting origami and other craft-related activities.

Ms. Aparna Rao, an 11th grader, has been independently doing papercraft activities with the children as well, as well as raising funds. Photos of her work can be found in this gallery album.

11th graders from Indus International School volunteered during their spring break to paint the wall built in the play area. It took a good 14 hours of hard work – designing, planning, priming the wall and actually painting the design. The progress of the work and the end result can been seen in this album.

Thank you all for your contribution and beautiful work. We hope that you will continue to be part of the Foundation.

Nov 20th Library Upgrade

Sandhya — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 16:22:48 +0000

We had another fun day at the childrens ward on Nov.20th. 6 volunteers from IBM ( from a single team) visited us. They had gotten together and contributed toward upgrading our library facilities at Kapoor ward. They have also supplied us with enormous amount of stationery that will keep our classes going for the next few months.

We now have some very valuable and age appropriate books added to our library and the teachers and kids are thrilled.

We are grateful to Taruna, Rupak Das, Mani, Satish and all others in the team ( I wish i remembered all their names) for the collective work and the valuable time spent with us at the ward. We hope you will visit us again.

Cheers!

Cleanathon Drive at Kidwai Memorial – Oct 2010

Sandhya — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 09:36:33 +0000

23rd Oct 2010.

A group of volunteers from Oracle lead by our very own Punith B, came in to the children’s ward area at 8.30 am and started a massive clean-a-thon drive. They were equipped with Mamutti, hats, gloves, garbage bags, and a great attitude. Punith and his team helped the Samiksha Team clean up the environment around the Pediatric ward and the Dharamashala. After cleaning out the weeds and rubbish outside, they went on to do an awareness program on cleanliness to the children and their caregivers. This was done as an entertainment show with songs, mimicry and other question answer sessions in many languages.

This entire activity is the beginning of a huge project initiative by the foundation to renovate the Play area for the children in the oncology wards at KMIO. Following the presentations, as a token of good luck, each child was presented with a small potted plant that they were asked to care for in the coming weeks. This is said to be very therapeutic and joyful for them.

We did see a lot of very happy faces at the end of the day there! Pictures of this event are now on the gallery: go to http://picasaweb.google.com/happinessquotient/CleanathonAtKidwai23Oct2010

Thank you Punith and team!

Red Hat Party

Sandhya — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:39:17 +0000

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.

June 2010- biggest birthday party at Kapoor ward

Sandhya — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:53:01 +0000

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!

Celebrity Visit: Mukesh Rishi

Sandhya — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 16:56:05 +0000

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.