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New Families — Numbers reaching over 80
The last couple of months have been busy busy busy! Not only have we been busy studying and learning and cooking and everything else we do, but we were also welcoming entirely new families and three old families back into the One! circle. Sangeeta and her siblings (mom Manju who’s husband passed away 15 months ago) rejoined One! after almost 3 years. They came to visit a couple of times but are here to stay this time. It was movie morning when they first arrived and Sangeeta refused to watch, wanting to get straight into studies. Raziya came back with much the same enthusiasm, but unfortunately her mom keeps moving her back and forth. We are trying to teach her mom to give her children a steady environment, but we will have to wait until next time they come around—likely only a month away. Pooja and Akash also returned to study and hopefully to stay. The two families to the left along with Sonu and Shakti, Rahul and Santosh, Poonam and Sachin, Sonal, Rutika, Manoj, and Santosh and Kiran began studying with One! for the first time. Sachin is a very unhealthy baby whom we are working with closely, but the rest of the children took only a week before they were fully mixed in and creating as much mischief as everyone else!
Our school is swamped, with more than 60 children attending regularly (10 too small, 10 having to work for the family). We now have 85 children in our care!
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 Above—Kajol, Parkash, and Bhola with their parents. Right—Kavita and Govind with their parents and older siblings. |
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NO GOA : (
The volunteers were very disappointed when the Annual Program came along and very few families were consistently paying back their loans. The families were told that if they didn’t make the efforts to pay back their loans, then the children would miss out on their trip to Goa. And so it happened, the Goa trip was cancelled and the volunteers were crushed having heard how much fun it was in years before. The children of families who paid responsibly and attended school regularly didn’t miss out entirely though and in fact had a whole new experience—an amusement park! Volunteers and Staff took 24 children to Essel World in the North of Mumbai. It wasn’t exactly inexpensive but well worth it for the children. Smiles filled their faces, good treats filled their bellies and they were even well-behaved throughout the whole day!!!! Sounds like a pretty good reward to me! |
Exams
Exams went fabulously this semester. The children have begun to think of it as a fun time, a good challenge with the other students. Now that is a good way of looking at it! We wrote exams in all subject areas, and the exams were based on what each student was working on in classes. Often, we made two or three different exams for each group as their ability varies. In the C Group, new student Kavita came away with almost everything. We tried to make them tougher on her, but she still managed an overall average of 92%. She won five class prizes. Little Raju was the other student who had stellar results, he was the only other student to pass in every subject and won four awards. Dineeka, Anil and Ajay came away with one award each. In the B Top Group, Sanju felt that he didn’t have any competition, he won top mark in every exam but Science with an average of 87%. Sonu, Madhu and Ravi achieved two awards each. The B Bottom Group was a lot more even, with Raoti and Kishor squeaking out the highest averages and various prizes. Manju, Kokila, Rajeshree and Govind also won prizes. A Top Group was another runaway for Jayenti (Bismilla didn’t write); he achieved above 90% in all four core subjects. Ramoo and Ashok both won prizes. Surprises in A Bottom, were Roshan’s win in math and Nilesh’s win in woodworking. Otherwise Santosh and Parvin walked away with everything. Special awards were given to the four students that attained honours—Kavita, Madhu, Sanju and Jayenti. Geeta and Nilesh were awarded special awards for effort. |
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Photos by Ralph Sagan: info@rafsagan.net |
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