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Summer Fun!
2004 was the best summer yet! The fun began on the 19th of April and didn’t end until the 29th of May. We spent three hours together every day having soooo much fun. We were organized and managed to accomplish plenty. The first hour of every morning was work hour. Pallavi taught the sewing project, and managed to teach the girls many stitches successfully. They have finishing handkerchiefs in only six weeks. Reshma, Usha, Manda, Dilshaad, Raziya, and Sonu participated in sewing. Dharam, Parvin, Parkash, Mukesh, Nilesh, Rakesh, and Ramoo were the boys that participated in the woodworking project. First they practiced sawing a straight cut, hammering a straight nail, and measuring. Once they got a grasp of that we started making wooden boxes to be used for book storage, desks and as stools. A perfect box earns them 50 Rupees. The boys finished their first box within the first four weeks...but they weren’t perfect! They each earned 30 rupees and are excited to earn more on their second. The five boys chosen to attend the boarding school in Baroda were busily studying, trying to prepare for the big change. The remaining two hours were for FUN and ONLY FUN! We acted and danced and sang and did crafts until no end. On the 29th of July, we invited all of the parents to witness what we created. We sang Head and Shoulders and Itsy Bitsy Spider in both Hindi and English, as well as our old songs. We performed two plays: a play about animals for the younger children, and the older children performed a very short rendition of Romeo and Juliet. Reshma and Mukesh were the stars! We also displayed all of our crafts, sewing handkerchiefs and the completed boxes. The children were very proud of themselves! |
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 Children ready to perform one of the plays that we performed during the summer—they are all chickens! |
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Amazing Volunteers
These have been simply the best two months ever...and it is all due to the amazing efforts of all of the volunteers. They all worked well together and simply brought One! to a higher place. Caroline worked very hard at organizing the summer program for us to accomplish as much as possible. Her method will be used in many years to come. Kamila and Rafal from Poland were godsends. They came to India to travel, met us by chance and ended up volunteering for 6 weeks. Rafal is a professional photographer who volunteered to take all of our pictures for us. Aren’t they gorgeous!?! Vasun from Singapore arrived at the end of April to make the house full and us very happy. Vasun is wonderful and gives everything she does her whole heart. Kirsty from England had a short stint with us—3 weeks—but she gave love to last much longer. Richard and Crystal arrived at the end of the month to join Vasun for 2 months. |
Visitors to Mumbai
 All of the children were just as happy as Rukshar when Tracey Jackson came to town. She spoiled the children absolutely rotten!!! We went to Juhu Beach and Tracey treated them to three rides each. Then she followed this by giving them candies, toys, pens and crayons. Boy oh boy! Seeing the children’s smiles that day, Tracey decided to follow up her already enormous contributions to One! by giving a weekly donation for the children to go on the rides more often! Wow! Melanie Johnson has been a long time friend to One! and so, when she decided to travel to Goa for a holiday, she also decided to bring us a bag full of tricks...and it was phenomenal! Inside the bag was a seemingly endless supply of books and pens and craft supplies. The timing was perfect as we were just about to start the Summer Fun Celebration explained above. |
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