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The Summer Holidays are here again – and this year too we conducted our annual Summer Program, but with a difference. This year, due to State Elections, we ran the Program for 4 weeks instead of 5. But the main difference was that this year, due to the increase in the number of children and the bigger geographical distribution, we ran the Program in 3 centres. On the first day, we had a record number of 500+ children attending our Program! The numbers albeit reduced gradually, as the kids went off to their native villages as the summer progressed.

Children from different village schools made new friends, our new rural Coordinators learnt a lot from our Senior Coordinators, as well as from their trainers and volunteers. For the children, it was fun and games, but continuity in their English language learning. This year however, it was possible to provide mid-day meals at only one centre

As in the past, a few supporting Corporates provided Travel tempos to pick up and drop the children safely from distant villages, to the Program centres every day.

Our regular Program gives the children the unique experience of learning with games, puzzles, activity cards, story-telling, songs, rhymes, laptops, and Tablets. But this year, during the Summer, they had yet another unique experience – learning outdoors, under the shade of beautiful trees, with the gentle breeze soothing the heat of the summer. Yes, we experimented with the “outdoor learning”, being one with nature, and realized that the kids enjoyed it a lot better than doing the same activities indoors, in stuffy, hot classrooms!

The icing on the cake was the presence of our Founder Anamika Majumder who was down from Boston for the week. She spent some quality time in the last 3 days, with the children as well as our Coordinators. Our kids put up a wonderful performance of songs and skits for her.