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.

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!

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!

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.

We are looking forward to seeing Rajesh and his team and having a great morning with our children at the wards.

Program scheduled at 11.30 am at the Dharamshala near  Kapoor ward at Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology, Bangalore.

Cheers!

It’s been a great year for all of us at the Samiksha Foundation. A lot of learning has taken place, both for us and for the children. Our Foundation has grown from an idea to reality, and we have been joined by a whole lot of creative and talented people.

We are grateful for everyone who contributed to our work this year: our fabulous trustees, volunteers and core team, everyone we met who decided to support us and spread the word to others, and the children, who, in fact, seem to have taught us far more than we have taught them.

We look forward to seeing you again next year (or, rather, next week). Here’s hoping that the year (and folder) named 2010 will be filled with joy, contentment, prosperity, humour and positive learning experiences!

- The Samiksha Foundation Team

http://picasaweb.google.com/happinessquotient/ChildrenSDay2009#

A detailed description of the event is also present.

Children’s Day was another landmark day for the Foundation and for the children at Samiksha.

We are now in collaboration with a Theatre in Education group named Script People’s Theatre. We had a wonderful afternoon of playback theatre with them during which they heard personal experiences or favourite stories of the children and enacted them on stage. Among the most hilarious and engaging themes played back were the story of the Hare and the Tortoise and actor Ramya’s visit to a child at the hospital ward.

As always, the dramatists were rewarded with lots of laughter and applause, and the children told them to come back every week.

We are grateful to Rajesh, Venkatesh and the moderator Umesh, as well as their team for the wonderful performance. Their website can be found at http://playbacktheatre.wordpress.com.

This was supervised by Manmohan Iyer, Sandhya Sharad, and Manjari.