written by Bhavya K., our Educational Coordinator.

We, the Sangam India members have been visiting Ramavaram as often as we can. The smiling faces of the children of Ramavaram, and the love that they shower upon us each time we visit them made us want to help them in every way we possibly could. We decided to design our lesson-plans in such a way that would make their futures brighter.

Our primary goal is to inculcate healthy nutritional and sanitary habits etc. We have grouped these objectives under ‘health Awareness’. We made a head start n this during our first survey where we asked for the dietary intake of each child to help us assess the gap between their intake and required intake. Since then we have had several medical camps and several hand washing and tooth brushing sessions where the children have been taught the importance, need and correct techniques. We plan to teach them many more health-related lessons to give them a healthier future. One health lesson is included in each lesson plan along with the other activities.

Our second objective is to build a sense of team work and trust’ among the Ramavaram children within themselves and also with the Sangam India participants. Living in a community/society, we think that this would be a very important tool for them to progress and grow as individuals. Healthy competition will be encouraged and material incentives kept to a minimum. The aim is to make them understand that ‘united we stand, divided we fall’. We plan to achieve this by playing various games and having various activities like the stic-activity, blindfold games, sports etc.

Our third objective is teaching them ‘values’. This would include importance of telling the truth, respecting elders etc. our fourth objective is the ‘etiquette’. We hope to achieve these two goals through reciting stories with a moral, enacting skits and plays with a moral lesson, etc. we hope this goal is acheived in conjunction with other activities g. sharing crayons while coloring etc.

Our fifth objective is to teach them ‘responsibilities and duties as a citizen’. This would include topics like teaching them to respect our national flag, our culture, public property etc. we hope to include field trips as a part of achieving this objective.

Lastly, we hope to encourage ‘creativity and entrepreneurship’ qualities in each child in Ramavaram as we believe it is a vital part of growing up.

Hence, with these six long term objectives in mind, we will sketch out each lesson plan. We hope we have covered the broad subjects which will help in their overall personality development. We hope to bridge the gap between what is taught to them in their homes and in their schools.

(I would like to thank my colleagues: Mounica, Vasundhara, Sriram, Nivedita, Navyatha and Thinesh, for helping me draw out these objectives which we hope to achieve slowly and steadily)

-Bhavya Krishna