CRY PUNE IN Action

“When I grow up, I want to be a doctor.. a scientist.. an astronaut” ..

At least these were the lines murmured by us, “the privileged ones” on the journey to life. Ever thought of someone who could never even think of this?

Since I have got your attention now, let’s talk about us. We are CRY (Child Rights and You), the Pune ones. All we buzz is one mantra; let’s make someone’s dream a unseen reality.

After teaching at a government school for almost half a year, we realized there are many of us who don’t get education. They work in peoples houses and hotels and where not to earn some food for themselves.

Situations are not so bad for all, but steadily, we volunteers realized that the children who live in slums are no so equipped with resources as much as we have. So what now?

The team of CRY Pune volunteers has been continuously involved in doing whatever we can to build this up in the community. It all started by getting a team of trustworthy members in place, with a common vision, and planning to uplift someone else’s future, the future of little children living on rock bottom.

We entered school and took classes. Attendance increased swiftly and the kids started interacting with us, on the most personal level possible.

Our interaction was in various ways, classes, sports, winter camps, rewards and many more.

The kids loved us and most importantly we loved them. Ever Saturday they would wait for us to come and take their class. They grasped their little hands tightly and pulled us to their class, murmuring, “bhaiya, aaj humari class”(Brother, today take your class). This motivated us to dig more into their lives and enhance their dreams. We taught them the value of culture, etiquettes, manners and many more blissful life values. They taught us the meaning of togetherness, for everyone little child cared for each other.

CRY Pune volunteers are now looking to do some more campaigns, including, diet, health, medical checkups and various other enrollment drives.

We are also looking into getting these kids equipped with the modern technology, teaching them the value of education and making them understand their rights.

Hope all moves as planned! So if you also are interested to be part of this amazing change then do volunteer with us. We are always looking for people like you. Please contact vol.mum@crymail.org or post on CRY FB pages - https://www.facebook.com/CRY.Pune

Volunteers Feedback on Summer Camp

Ø  

“   When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can do amazing things."

This is exactly what happened when the North Mumbai group came together for a summer camp. It was super fun with kids and a very memorable experience. Every child seemed to be so happy and excited, learning many new things. No one wanted to leave. We conducted many sessions to teach them how to get a better and safe life and more importantly helped them cope with such circumstances, turning everything negative into something positive that they can look forward to. These fun filled sessions enabled them to look at life positively and enjoy life to its best. Dance, Fancy dress, Music, theatre workshop and a session on child sexual abuse were among the things that the volunteers conducted. A memorable experience to gather knowledge, the camp was a very good platform to maintain the enthusiasm and recall the fun which a child can have with education.”

-Malvika Saini

Senior motion graphic artist

Volunteer since 2014.

Ø  “The summer camp was a pretty good experience for the volunteers as well as for the kids. I think the parents should also be invited to such events, as they drive their children into the future. The camp was a fun-filled experience and more such camps should be held for the children.”

Dewang Kamdar

Internal audit head at Parekh Integrated Services pvt. ltd.

Volunteer since 2015.

Ø  “The CRY summer camp gave me a chance to peek in my own childhood. It taught me to be humble and sincere for what life has given me. I see a lot of them growing up to achieve greater heights. I wish the best of life to kids and appreciate CRY for accepting me into their wonderful world.”

Kush Sharma

Research Scientist at Reliance Industries,

Volunteer since 2014.

Ø  “It was my privilege to be a part of the CRY summer camp. It was a fantastic experience where we got to know about kids and their dreams. Video clips were shown to the children on informative topics like cleanliness and child sexual abuse which will help kids to improve and stay alert. I look forward to participating more in CRY events.”

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Vijay Singh,

Manager, Chola MS general insurance
Volunteer since 2015.

Summer Fun 2015

200 children, 30 volunteers, 6 interns, 2 locations and 3 weekends

From last year CRY west VA started conducting summer camp for children. Last year it was one location and 80 children and this year we expanded, with help of volunteers and interns we were not able to just have fun activities but talk about some serious issues like child sexual abuse ,  health and hygiene; mad science experiments ,  child labour and education also touch base on motivational activities for children.

It was amazing to see how volunteers from different PAGS came together to help each other reach out to their friends and family to arrange for resource people to conduct sessions, we had professional dancers and their team , musicians , counsellors and theatre artists to help us

Philips supported us again this year to distribute bottle and Tiffin packs ; also sponsored food and stationary material for the summer camp. There 10 employees and senior officials also volunteered.

We conducted camp in Aeroli government school –  80 children were regular participants and on last day we had 120 children join us .

Jogeshwari with Aakar children – 80 children 

Modern Melody helped get professional musicians and singers to conduct sessions

Paper dance helped them understand if you work as a team you can always win 

Children understanding safe and unsafe touch 

We had coordinator from Child Line ( Anupama ) come and talk about good touch and bad touch and what to do in the difficult situation. Volunteers were divided among the children to make sure children understand the whole session. 

 Art and Craft workshop children learnt to make pen stand , quilling etc

Philips senior officials dressed as warrior by children in fashion show workshop 

Little dance and little exercise can make you healthy wealthy and wise ( North Mumbai PAG summer camp 

Theater workshop by Amey ( New Mumbai PAG)

Thank You to all volunteers , interns and CRY team it was not possible without their support


Volunteers                                              Interns
Suraj                                                      komal
Amey                                                    Prinson
Ajay                                                      Amrit
Suman                                                   Prithvi
Kush                                                      Ishita
Mohit
Ashish                                                    Maria
Rahul                                                    
Rahul
Suchi
Rashid
Bhakti
Pavitra
Surbhi
Madiha
chandani
Vijay
Anupama
Fatema
Nilesh
Hitakshi
Shweta
Neha
Malvika

Jogeshwari Community – Our Recalls

Jogeshwari Community – Our Recalls

Creating a balance and breaking the ice

We started with a motive of getting to know the community well by interacting with the kids. To make it attractive for them we preferred the mode of games. We also tried to get into showing them alphabets and numbers but we realised getting someone introduced to these basics required sustained efforts and most of the kids used to mix up the alphabets and numbers.

The group therefore started to tell them about shapes and even more basic “holding the pencil”.

The response was good for this activity and kids loved to colour and draw shapes.

The level of knowledge & way of communication

Moving ahead we felt that we had a good mix of kids of various age groups and we were telling them the same things. As a result some found it too naïve or for some it was above their level.

The group then decided to split the kids into groups and the volunteers also started interacting with the groups and spoke to them as per their level.

We employed games, origami, storytelling, dance and acting as our mode of communication.

A good innovation was BINGO number game a customised version of housie to get used to numbers

Motivation for enrolment in schools

After spending some time in the community we now had our next target getting the kids go to school. However it was not possible without the engagement of the parents in our program.

We planned a pseudo enrolment drive and invited the parents. There we explained the importance of education and noted down the names of kids who wished to attend the school.

The kids were divided into groups and a volunteer was assigned to each group to mentor them.

Are our plans working?

After the school session started we came to know that the attendance is poor in school. It was a setback as we had worked hard and got everyone aboard.

Our group therefore proposed the following strategy:

1.       Getting the attendance collected from school every 15 days and emailed to all. So that each mentor can actually figure the exact situation.

2.       Allotment of an intern to keep moving the initiative on weekdays.

We did our best before the festive season to get the kids to school. Our group members even visited the community in the mornings and evenings to take them to school personally or to discuss the issues.

We even visited the schools and discussed the problems with headmaster to figure out a solution.

The attendance improved but still was not impressive.

What to do we feel stuck?

After a break of two months when we resumed our activities we felt stuck. We felt we are doing the same activities that we were doing few months back.

We really had to decide what to do we want? Are we teachers or just mentors?

The group decided to give it a fresh start and we started with teaching them basics. Like alphabets and numbers. We used blackboard, chalk to make the session more interactive.

The result looks to be better this time.

Getting closer

We decided to celebrate Diwali with the community this year. All of us who could make it went to the community, lit diyas, made rangolis and spread love.

We wanted to make them feel special and we hope we have succeeded. We have made some changes by being more closer to children and they hear our basic instructions on health and hygiene,  taking bath etc. they show the excitement of us being there and doing various activities. 

The Road Ahead

We wish to inspire and motivate them to realise the importance of education and try to get most of them to school.

The Thorns:

1.       Kids have a habit of begging.

2.       No one to take care of a small kid at home so the elder one misses school.

3.       Kids work and support their family so making them attend school increases burden on the other earning members.

4.       Lack on constant motivation for education.

5.       Volunteer availability.

Thorns which we can pluck:

1.       We came across a kid who was brilliant and needed tution for English. We managed it in the end somehow but we can have something better for them or else whats the use of motivation.

2.       We should filter our bright kids and run some scholarships or lets say a scheme where if a kid attends 75% in a year the parents get some money. This will reduce their financial burden will more willing to make the kids to go to school.

3.       We should have a permanent member to take care of the activities we do and we act as enablers.

4.       The permanent member should collect various datas and inform our group weekly. We never know the exact situation and our impact. We make guesses.

5.       We should let them if there is some scheme under which small kids can be taken care of like a day crèche which allows the other one to go to school.

Special Applause:

Rashmi’s friend Katyayani has really helped us in a great way by taking up the tuition responsibilities of the kid in need of it. Her efforts will surely help him ahead.

We the team:

Kaustubh, Malvika, Siddhartha, Abhishek, Ananya, Rashmi, Hitakshi, Sudeepta, Kavita Ghosh,  Kavita More, Priyanshi, Avanish and the new volunteers.

Introducing Bandra Group

The group started small with 4 people and  started learning more about volunteering by talking to other PAG members and helped New Mumbai group with summer camp helped in Click Rights campaign.

Now it was their time to start our community work.  They had 2 training sessions on dos and don’t s of the community work plus the ECCE. 

The group then decided to start the awareness programme with a small skit on the issue of immunization. Simple information of immunization can bring lot of change in the thinking of the community. So the skit was finalized and the day was decided for the big Nukkad Naatak

Practice Practice Practice

They were all going crazy learning dialogues sequence of the play and got lot of help from New Mumbai Volunteers. The Big Day came with lot of excitement they assembled community members and start performing within seconds they had a crowd to hear them.

It was wonderful feeling of getting people reaction of staying and listening to the volunteers. With every reaction and scream we gained our confidence to scream out loud our dialogues and reach out to as many as they could.

They  performed the street play in two places  in the community

Ravi Bandra Volunteer experience “It isn’t always that we get time from the hustle bustle of life and spend it to cheer other faces. Fortunately, we at CRY ‘Bandra’ - a relatively naive group in years but full of enthusiasm in ideas – happened to enlighten the Kherwadi Community at Bandra East on the importance of immunization and vaccination on the 12th of October, 2014.

They say “You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one”. Pondering days on when to enact the skit on immunization in the Community, we were getting a bit late. And we finally met on 11thOctober – a three hour preparation – and all set to rock. We needed to act!!

The skit was performed at two places in the community and the response, we humbly state, was commendable. One could overhear “ You people should keep coming; no matter polio immunization has been taken care of in this country at large”. Ah! We were talking of smiles, right! How about seeing the happiness of the children through the day’s pics!!

The Bandra Team was guided by the veterans Abha Mam and Ravindra Sir along with the fantastic members of Navi Mumbai group comprising Sagar, Amey, Suman and Ajay. The participants from Bandra group were : Mohit, Madiha Yash, Rahul, Akshay, Ravi 1 and Ravi 2.

We tried our best to pass on the message to the audience of leading a healthy life, to be extra vigilant on immunization and vaccination front.

The whole group eagerly awaits our further tasks which include teaching kids on a regular weekend basis, health care among others.

Video link -- Nukkad Naatak Video

Culminating Ujjawal's 2500 km ride.

Christopher Morley once said, "The bicycle,  surely, should always be the vehicle of novelists and poets". So, for Ujjawal’s efforts, we can surely say that it is also the vehicle of an enthusiastic volunteer set out on a journey to show that he cares

On Sunday morning of 29^th June, - Finally Ujjwal was here in Mumbai after his month long journey the Mumbai VA team with volunteers were eagerly waiting for him at Bandra so that he can cover his last patch with us . Lake City Peddlers  and Bandra Cycle group with 40 cyclist cycled around and supported the child rights issue 

The second leg of culmination was office welcome for Ujjwal 

Mumbai location was very eager to meet Ujjwal hear his story and know what was going in his mind while deciding this journey and completing it as wel on time 

A weather worn and content Ujjawal entered the office to be greeted by a thunderous round of applause. A surprise in store was waiting for him, his parents had been invited for the event as well. He was mildly flustered and greatly happy meeting them.

The event commenced with a welcome address by Abha Duggal, after that there was a short movie on Ujjawal’s trip. Mr.  Chandrashekhar Ponda , GM HO HR  gave a short speech and presented him a scrapbook that summarized his entire journey and contained hundreds of congratulatory messages.  He and his cycle companion were also felicitate with plaque. Ujjawal shared his experiences with everyone, and replied to all the questions put that were asked. Ujjawal’s   father also spoke about Ujjawal’s ride.

Ujjwal welcomes with standing ovation and claps in Mumbai office 

Many aptly utilized the opportunity to click photos with Ujjawal and his cycle. Then came the most awaited lunch session, a potluck had been planned which had each person bring something special from home that was to be shared to everyone else. The lunch break was an happy, sumptuous affair with people scuttling between tables to try and taste all the delicious dishes.

Lastly, a HANGOUT session at 3:00 pm was conducted inviting the volunteers from all over India to discuss their experiences with Click Rights event and pose questions to Ujjawal.

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