Deepalaya - Enabling Self-Reliance

On 6th of October, 2007, Deepalaya’s “Education on Wheels” branch saw a fantastic and awe-inspiring Sports Day being held for its children in the comfortable shadows of a neighborhood park near the office in North-Delhi.The “Education on Wheels” project is trying to reach out to marginalised children by resorting to innovative and joyful teaching methodologies. The basic aim is to educate “children at risk” in an alternative way by using a mobile unit to achieve a high accessibility and education at the doorstep at a time convenient to the working children. The mobile school overcomes the problem of space shortage in the slums and is thus a complete solution and therefore allows more utility.

Starting at approximately 10.30 am the event commenced with a few minutes of singing traditional songs and a game that engaged the children to chase one another around a circle of the seated children.

Thereafter Mr. Trishpal Tonk delivered a brief lecture about personal hygiene and health care. In order to enhance the children’s competitive spirit, the entire group of children was divided into two separate teams, Team Red and Team White, and each team members were marked with a correspondingly colored strip of cloth around their respective arms.

Following, a relay with each child sprinting a short distance furthered the children’s fascination increasingly – cheering for their team members and celebrating especially quick sprints.

However, already having produced a smile on almost every participant’s face, the next game on the schedule was even more fun. The task for each team was to fetch out an apple floating in a bucket of water, which was almost full to the brim, merely using their mouth and with their hands folded on their backs. It was considered the most difficult game, but to everyone’s great surprise the children were very talented and quick at fetching the apple, using very different techniques and sometimes being almost soaking wet. Of course, at the end of the game - refreshed by the cooling effect of the water and being given one apple to eat, regardless of whether the apple had been fetched by this person or not – happiness spread across everyone’s face once again.

The next upcoming game was called “lemon run” and once again each and every child proved their skills worthy – this time in calmness of hand in combination with a good sense of coordination and swiftness.

Following the “lemon run”, both teams competed in a sack race that bore no witness to incipient fatigue but rather even more enthusiasm and more cheering.

After that, to keep up fighting spirits, another race was started around the same zoning markers as used for the latter. Bound together in pairs with stripes of cloth around their ankles they had to try to get around the marking as quickly as possible and race to the finish line. It was a good opportunity for the children to increase their team spirit and their consideration of the position of other people – in this case the other part of the “third leg”.
Concluding this Sports Day, a tug of war between both teams was a short but nevertheless utterly entertaining unit.

To sum up the general feedback of the children, it can be said that it was an event which created very much pleasure and exuberance. Some were even so intrigued by it that they asked Tobias and Anjulie to host another Sports Day in the near future. As it can be considered a really welcome diversion from the children’s harsh reality of life, it is extremely likely that both volunteers will use some amount of their time to make this wish come true. Hopefully, the children will live with a pleasant recollection of this event in the meantime.