Republic Day Celebrations @Prayas, Gurgaon

Given below are details of the Republic Day celebrations at the Prayas centre, Gurgaon in January 2008.

Volunteers from Evalueserve and Sparsh organized Republic Day celebrations at the centre to interact with the students. Varun, Abhinav and Ankit from Evalueserve and Sumit, Priyanka and Shweta from Sparsh volunteered and conducted the program. The volunteers kick-started the celebration by educating the children about the importance and relevance of the day by recapitulating the historical events surrounding the day This was followed by a brief round of introductions.

The volunteers organized a host of activities such as flag-making, poetry recitation and prize distribution. The flag-making session was started off by dividing the children into teams of five students. Each team was encouraged to choose a representative name and assigned a volunteer to guide them. The children were then educated about the structure of the national flag and each student was then provided paper and colours to make one flag. The children were told that their teacher Mr. Devendra would adjudge the best three flags and the students who made them would be acknowledged. The children spent considerable time and effort to make their own flags. The end result was terrific and choosing the top three flags proved to be a very difficult task. The students were then given their flags and photographed with their flags.

The flag-making activity was followed by a poetry recitation activity. Each student was encouraged to recite poetry in front of everyone. The students then came up and recited poems learnt in the school.

Finally, much to the delight of everyone, sweets were distributed to all students at the centre. This was followed by a prize-distribution ceremony to acknowledge the hard-work put in by the students in the school. Essential stationary materials such as pencils, sharpeners and erasers were provided to all students who are capable of writing. The volunteers concluded the session by stressing the importance of attending the school regularly to all the students present.

The activity was well received by the students and saw good participation. The day provided the volunteers a great opportunity to interact with the students, who with their friendly demeanor lent warmth to the otherwise chilly day.