Saturday, July 18, 2009

Season Runs: Start At Ananya

So the running season for the year 2009-10 started off last month and as part of the training program, Team Asha Bangalore will conduct runs at each of its supported programs so that the volunteers, trainers, runners and the kids can all interact with each other.

Kick start At Ananya

So the first run-at-the-site took off at Ananya today. Other than the regular Asha Runners none turned up for the run (Rains? Where?). But it was business as usual for all of us.



Weather Dither
What a lovely weather and we were in no mood to run or practice Karate. After quite a few dilly dallying we all took off for the run at around 7.20AM. Most of the kids did a neat 3KM and others went on to do a 5KM.

As the drizzle was bearable we all went in for our stretching session and then started our Karate session.

Beat the Weather



As we started our training for Karate session Vinodh, Narmada and I donned the "sesnsei" role as Manjula was away.

As the drizzle started to gather momentum we wound up one batch. But Vinodh stood between the weather and the class. After a quick vote with kids he decided to go on and surprisingly he already got them on even heels over the first Kata (Fukyugata Ichi). Good job pal !

The Breakfast

Lets give you a small tour inside Shivamma's kitchen from where those Idlies come flying to our plates melange'd over chutney and sambhar.



Soon our trainers from "Runner's High" joined us with couple of guests over breakfast. Post breakfast some of us played volleyball and football(soccer).

Volunteering

From this Saturday most of us would be staying back further till noon and introduce things like computers and mathematics to kids in an interesting way so that its not a burden on them and they would rather relish it.


Today we started our effort by first cleaning up all the viruses that have infected the computers at Ananya. But as we were running on UPS because of power outage we could restrict ourselves only to a couple of computers. One of the senior students was taught on how to do it on couple of machines so that he can finish the basic tasks by next Saturday.



Then we slowly started the kids to involve in a discussion on what are computers, what they can do, why does a keyboard look different, the shift key in the keyboard and many others.

We wanted to show the kids their pics for a long time and finally we managed to show them their pics today.

Taking granted on Basic assumptions

Santhosh had asked kids some basic questions like why does a mathematics compass can measure only 360 degrees (why not 400?). Also things like why the clock has just 12 hours (why not 20?) and things such as these as a kids (and even as an adult) we have never questioned the basic premise. This is what most of us would want to defy and really get into the root of things.



The whole idea to "question" is what we are looking at. Getting this inquisitiveness will be one of our top priorities. Vinodh has more interesting ideas on science and maths and he would start sharing as we move ahead.

Finally I took all the time on earth, had my lunch at Ananya and then left !

Some pictures in here:
http://picasaweb.google.co.in/teamasha8k/AshaRunAnanya#


Go Team Asha and Ananya, Go !

4 comments:

Shashi Rao said...

Hi Team Asha and Ananya kids.
Rain Rain go away or stay, it really does not matter to you does it? The dedication of the staff and the children is amazing. Thanks to all of you for making us feel so special and valued. We look forward to Saturdays as much as you all, albeit for different reasons!!
Go team Asha and Ananya!
Shashi

Balu said...

@Shashi:

All our pleasure !
We are just glued to Ananya !

Vidhya said...

Its a treat to see the kids learning discipline the fun way. They are enjoying this beyond limits no doubt and taking it serious too. Thumbs up to Team Asha.

Balu said...

@Vidhya:

Thanks for dropping by. Just a humble effort from all of us.