Treat people as if they were the people they are capable of being and they will have a better chance of reaching their potential.
ANON
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Health Watch
We have finally neared the completion of the dental check-ups and follow-up work for the children. Oh what an ordeal it was!
Young 8-13 year olds needing root canals and minor surgery. One of our younger children (Sunil 7) needed to have five teeth extracted, and 3 fillings. Poor little guy.
Once this first year rolls to a completion, the following years will be much easier. The basics will be done and most of the children will only need cleanings… PHEW!!!
Next on our “to do” list is optometry check-ups and glasses for those who need. We are quite sure that at least ten children need glasses.
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Annual Program #4!
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The Annual Program was awesome this year—better than ever everyone says.
The children really seemed to love what they were doing, and put their whole hearts into it. The audience was full (in fact we didn’t have enough chairs!) and there were only four or five individual parents missing. Every student had at least one parent there except Raoti. The parent’s were even well behaved—now that’s a first!
We did a lot more singing this year. We sang two songs as a school (it felt like such a great…large… family).
Each group also sang their own English song (with actions) and their own Hindi song.
The dances were—as always—a huge hit. Vinod wonderfully choreographed all of the dances. The A students dance was particularly excellent—they were in time with each other and Vinod threw in some pretty fancy moves!
The children loved their plays this year. They were written by Randy and Nikki (small kids) and Joshua and Tania (big kids). Only problem is that the kids can’t project their voice. The full audience may not have understood, but the children sure did and had a few laughs throughout! No lines missed—smooth as silk!!! It was a great night, the children are very talented!
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Above, the B children perform their dance. Below, the whole school sings a song together.
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Learning More Skills—Cooking!
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When we lost our cook—Deepa—at the end of October, it was just what we needed to kick us into our next skill building program. Cooking!
The program is run completely by Vandana. She is an excellent cook and teacher and has been very successful already.
Vandana takes three different children every day from the A and B children (girls and boys!) to prepare lunch for that day. She spent a lot of time the first time each of the children cooked, in teaching the safety involved and the dangers.
The children absolutely LOVE it. They are very proud of what they make—whether it is edible or not! Often the other children will complain that the food is too salty or not cooked enough or too spicy, but the children who make it just say “no way, it is perfect, just the way we like it!”.
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This is a very important skill for the children and will help them not only in the domestic setting (mostly for the girls), but also in terms of their health.
Vandana is teaching the children what is the health value of everything that they are cooking and how important each food group is. She is also trying to tackle the battle of “too much oil” and “too much salt”, but these are two very difficult issues you face in Indian cooking.
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