Day one: Arrival and welcome

Day two: Orientation

Day three to seven:
Project work – Banjarapalya village

1. Planting trees to make a once abandoned wasteland verdant again.
2. Interaction with the village schoolchildren, undergoing a puppetry, art and craft workshop with them and working toward establishing a play or sculpture in the village on the theme of international understanding.
3. Some basic English conversational teaching

Day fourteen to twenty one:

1. Visit to the Mamallapuram fishing villages
2. Work with the fishing families affected by the Tsunami
3. Visit to the famous shore temples of Mammallapuram, sculptor town of Mammallapuram
4. Visit to Pondicherry, Auroville International Community and Ashram

Day twenty two to twenty five:

1. Visit to the Madras Crocodile Bank
2. Games and barbeque on the beach
3. Disco night

Day twenty six to twenty eight

1. Return to Bangalore
2. Departure

Introduction in brief

There are several children who roam around the streets of Bangalore, homeless and severely exploited. These children beg by day and in the evening, whatever little they get, they spend on buying glue, Tippex correction fluid or other narcotics and get high to forget their troubles.

Those who will be involved in this project have been recently ‘rescued’ by a charity working with these children. The children need this type of project to get a peep into a different world from the one they are used to otherwise, they will escape from the home and go out on to the street again.

Arrival

The volunteers are picked up from the airport and taken to the residence cum yoga centre for a traditional welcome and rest.

Day One

The next day is an orientation, where they also meet the project counselors, trained child psychologists and are given a one day workshop training on how to interact with the children.

Day Two

Interaction and meeting the children in a controlled environment. There are games that everyone can be part of to break the ice and to get the volunteers and the children to get used to each other. They do an activity together to further become comfortable with each other.

In the evening, the whole group goes to an amusement park, together with the child activists, counselors and caretakers.

Rest and Relaxation

Day Three

Morning Yoga for the volunteers and the children.

Break up into smaller groups for activities like face painting

Indian Dance workshop

Bollywood film evening

Rest and relaxation

Day Four

Morning Yoga for the volunteers and the children.

We plan out a joint activity – mural/wall painting. This is a continuous activity. In this activity, we try to get the children to talk about their lives and the horrors of drug abuse that they have faced (facilitated by the trained couselors) and the volunteers interact with them to gently bring it out on the wall in colour paints or other medium.

Sports and games to end the day

Day Five

Morning Yoga for the volunteers and the children.

Continue the mural painting

Sports and Games

Sightseeing Bangalore and surrounding

Day Six

Travel to National Wildlife Park for Safari

Day Seven

Travel continues with a heritage tour of Mysore/Sravanabelagola/Belur/Halebid

Day Eight

Morning Yoga for the volunteers and the children.

Picnic at Ramnagaram with rock climbing, volunteers and children and staff

Return to base, rest and relaxation

Day Nine

Morning Yoga for the volunteers and the children.

Divide into smaller groups – music, theatre, dance

Trained teachers come and conduct workshops for the volunteers and the children in the respective groups

Barbecue night

Rest

Day Ten

Morning Yoga for the volunteers and the children.

Prepare an ‘international performance’

Sports and Games

Bangalore Shopping

Day Eleven

Morning Yoga for the volunteers and the children.

Prepare for final performance in their own respective groups

Sports and Games

Movie night in town

Day Twelve

Morning Yoga for the volunteers and the children.

The performance that the all the groups have been practicing is put together in the morning

Evening performance in front of assembled group of children’s parents, counselors, officials etc.

Special evening entertainment with disco

Day Thirteen

Morning Yoga for the volunteers and the children.

Saying goodbyes

Picnic in the park

Day Fourteen

Departure

 

Introduction in brief

The Government of Karnataka spends a lot of money on many things, but sadly, even though the money exists, not much is spent on primary education and infrastructure development for primary schools. As a result, the Government rural schools are in a pitiable condition. In a situation like this, children are uninterested in attending school and large numbers of them either drop out, or just attend school for the midday meal after which they leave. A project like this will inject colour and enthusiasm among the village school students.

Introduction in brief

Due to scant regard for the environment and overuse of fertilizer and pesticide, the once verdant Indian countryside is becoming a giant wasteland with degraded soil. The project envisages planting local trees like mango, neem and tamrind and other economically important trees and having the village women involved so that they will benefit economically from the reforestation and will be motivated to protect the trees planted

Introduction in brief

Knowledge about basic health and nutrition remains abysmally low in villages. It is difficult to communicate complicated ideas about the various nutrients an vitamins needed, and the necessity for proper hygiene through verbal means to a largely uneducated populace. Puppet theatre thus becomes important because the villagers find it entertaining as well as educative.

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