Samutkarsha Shibir 2010

Date - 17th and 18th May 2010

Venue – Sneha Seva near Singhgad

Vasti’s – Ramnagar (Warje), Janata vasat (Parvati), Vanshiv(Katraj)

Count of Children – 33

Vasti Volunteers - 4

Seva Sahayog Volunteers – 2

Shibir Activities Organizers – 7

After a month’s planning and efforts, Samutkarsha’s first residential shibir was organized on 17th and 18th May 2010 at Sneha Seva (Maitrya Trust) near Singhgad. Bus was organized by MES board’s Anil Valsankar.

Shibir activities were organized by a group of college students. Names as given below – Bhargavi, Saurabh, Madura, Sneha, Manas, Akshay, Sumedh. All of them worked hard for a week to plan different activities for shibir. This was their first experience to conduct such shirbir and they did it very well.

Monday 17th May 2010 7am we started collecting children from Janata vasahat near Parvati. From there we went to Vanshiv where children along with their 2 teachers were waiting for us. From there we went to Ramangar, Warje and then took road to Singhgad.

We reached to Sneha Seva by 9 am. Children were received by the organizing team. All were taken to a hall where they had an introduction round. In this round children were asked to call all organizers as tai-dada.

Children were given cards on which they wrote their names and location from where they came and return those cards to their tai-dada. Then Bhargavi took a small game where she randomly picked up one card and one child and asked the child to identify the person whose card she picked up. This activity helped children to know each other and basically they tried to remember each other’s names because we had 3 different groups from 3 vastis and they all came together for first time.

Then children were asked about what they expect from this shibir. Most of them answered different games like cricket, football and lot of masti . After that children were asked to pick up chits. And tai-dada’s were given a card board on which there were five categories, school, kitchen, sports, leaders, bathroom. They were asked to hide with those boards anywhere in the shibir area. Then children were supposed to open their chits and identify which group they belong to. Like if chit has something like black board then the child will run to find the tai-dada who have “School” sheet with him/her and be a part of that group. This way 5 groups were formed, which were named by children themselves. 5 groups were Rani Laxmi bai, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Shirish Kumar, Shivaji Maharaj

After forming groups, there were different activities like forming paper balls and throwing in a bucket at distance, eating hanging jilabees, blind person crossing the hurdles with the help of instructions from partner. Each game was played by 2 members of each group.

Then after all dhamal and masti children were asked to sit and Bhargavi taught them one very beautiful and thought provoking Science Song “Dole Ughadun Bagha Gadyanno Zhapad Lau naka, Je Diste Te Asech Ka Hai Ulgadnyala Shika”.

With the song, first session got over and everybody formed a circle and had a group lunch. Children were asked to bring their own Tiffin’s for first day’s lunch. It was just to keep up their enthu of getting Tiffin for picnic. Few of the children didn’t brought Tiffin’s so I asked all to share their food with them. To our surprise everybody picked up one-one chappati and forwarded their helping hand towards me. We were truly overwhelmed with the response we got from children. Few of them just bought 2 chappatis but still they wanted to share it with others. We thought…..here we think of teaching these kids lessons of morality, but it’s them who teach us lessons of humanity. After lunch there was one hour break. Children had fun in the garden.

After an hour, all gathered in the hall again. Next event was of “Powada”(Telling historical stories through songs) which was to be presented by one of the professional lady, Ms. Vineeta Joshi, who started singing Powada’s on stage from since she was just in 10th std. She was supported by Ms. Purohit, mother of Saurabh, one of the organizers. Both of them came from Pune just to present it to the children. We all were truly thankful to them. She presented Kondana (Singhgad) fort’s story as it was very near to the shibir location. Children got engrossed in the story towards the end. After that Vineeta tai taught kids one Powada of Shirish Kumar, a brave young freedom fighter and children sang it along with her.

After this session everybody wanted to get photos with Vineeta tai and Purohit tai. So we had a photo session with both of them.

In between, few members of Dagdu Sheth Halwai Trust visited the shibir. Bhalerao kaka, one of the members, told children few historic stories of Swami Samartha.

Then everybody had a tea break. After tea, boys went to play “Ghode Swar” (horse rider) and other games which were conducted by Saurabh, Manas, Sumedh and Bapu. And girls went with Bhargavi and Madura to nearby scenic spot of beautiful dam’s back water. There Bhargavi taught them few beautiful songs one of which was “Chiv Kau Mau, Mau Kau Chiv, Khelayla yeu, yeu ka yeu” . It became the most favorite song of children and they were singing it throughout the shibir and also asked their teachers to get it from the Bhargavi tai .

At around 8pm everybody gathered for dinner. After dinner everybody went to their respective tents and had different group activities. Even after shouting at all to go to sleep, as we were to go for early morning walk, nobody slept before 12am. Organizing team slept at 4am as they were planning treasure hunt for the children.

Next day without any wakeup call everybody came out of tents at round 5:15am. Even with just 4 to 5 hours sleep everybody was ready to have one more fun filled day with full energy.

All of us went to the nearby view point outside shibir area from where we got a beautiful back water view. Everybody sat in silence for 5 mins and then Bhargavi chanted Gayatri mantra and we all followed her. It was very peaceful experience to hear everybody chanting it in rhythm in early morning sun rays.

Breakfast and tea was ready when we came back to the Sneha-Seva. Everybody had breakfast and tea and then went for bath. Boys enjoyed the shower bath to their best. We had to shout at them to get out of the showers. Earlier most of them denied having bath with cold water but at the end of it everybody had it.

Next was the treasure hunt event. After hunting for the treasure for any hour and half, we all gathered in the hall for lunch. After lunch we had an hour’s break.

At around 3pm everybody gathered for the prize distribution session and we also asked children to present whatever they want to in front of all. So they came up with few dances, songs and mimicries. They were also asked to express their likes and dislikes of shibir and what they would expect more in next shibir. They enjoyed the songs taught by Bhargavi tai and the Treasure hunt they said and would love to have many such outings.

Treasure hunt winning team, Mahatma Gandhi group, was presented gift by one of the teachers Ms. Vaishali. And three best participants of shibir were given special gifts. Mangesh from Ramnagar (5th std), Balaji rfom Janata (2nd std), Shradha from Vanshiv (6th std).

4pm we all started with packing with heavy hearts as nobody was willing to go back to home . 4:30pm we left the Sneha-Seva , carrying with us beautiful memories. All children were dropped to their respective areas by 6:00pm.