A very pleasant atmosphere awaited the HUGS - Royapuram project team, as we entered the Government Boys Home, Royapuram, on the 6th June, 2010, Sunday. We were duly greeted by the staff, who had turned out promptly, despite the holiday. The Optometrists from MN Eye hospitals, had set the camp in motion with vision testing and the Ophthalmologist in our team(HUGS - Royapuram project ), Dr Radha Annamalai, started off with consultations. The rest of us, Feroz, Karthik, Monica, Nivash, Divya, Sharmila, Sindhu, Rama and I (Renita), set off to interact and gather some data from the staff and the inmates. Sundar joined in a while later. Our task was to speak to the inmates (each of them) and get to know them, and obtain a basic set of information on their family, academic levels and hobbies and interests; this activity was aimed at individualizing our solutions to suit each inmate to ensure success of the project. Overall, met around 125 children, ages ranging from 3 to 17, in two groups, those belonging to the mainstream home and those in the reception unit. Interaction with the latter was to change the way we perceived the whole exercise. First, we (HUGS - Royapuram project )met up with each of the house boys ( as they are called) and we learnt about the circumstances under which they landed up at this home. Some of the stories were very sad to listen to - but more about these, after complete data collation. Then came the boys in the reception unit - some having stayed there for months and some as recent as a day or two. Of these 50 boys, 30 were from other states, and more than half of them could hardly communicate in Hindi, hailing from places like Orissa and West Bengal. Little Rakesh Mallik, with bright beads for eyes, held me captive with his explanation of how easy it is for me to find his home - its over there by the gully, and he would point it out to me if I were to take me there. Rakesh was picked up from the railway station, and all he knows of his native place is the name, ?Gilli/? Dilli village in West Bengal. And when I asked him if he knew of any phone number, he said he didnt - but he could show me the home anytime!More stories later, we were sure we wanted to come back to this place. Even as this was going on, we met the staff, and they spoke to us about the issues and problems they face on a daily basis looking after the inmates. The doctor in charge was very friendly and supportive and told us that he would definitely follow up on the prescriptions for the spectacles and those requiring further ophthalmological evaluation. We had a very good briefing session by Mrs Glory, the Superintendant of the Home, and she gave us an outline of the history of the home. Once known for its redundancy, she spoke of how Royapuram Home improved from the last position to the top five among Government run homes in TamilNadu.
Over lunch, the team , HUGS - Royapuram project, discussed possible options and interventions, and we settled on a mentorship model - which is currently being finetuned.
We expect that we would need about 50 - 60 volunteers who would go on to mentor these deserving children, based on a syllabus to be put in place by the Project Team, HUGS - Royapuram project. Volunteers would pass a selection process( we can never be cautious enough, when it comes to role models for these children), and would commit a minimum of 12 hours over 3 months - though once the project is pilot run and all set, we would look for a commitment of atleast 24 - 36 hours over 6 months.
The HUGS - Royapuram project syllabus would include academic and play learning, fostering talents and focusing on extracurricular activities, psychosocial support, and regular follow up.
We hope that we will be able to provide these children some of the support that they are in need of, in partnership with the Government and the staff of the Home.
Interested individuals are encouraged to contact Renita (9894488797) or Feroz(9500059774), or mail in to us at hugsindia@gmail.com, renitarajan@gmail,com or zeeferoz@gmail.com, we are recruiting volunteers now. An innate interest and empathy towards the less privileged, initiative and enthusiasm in interacting with children, strong ethical values, and a pleasant personality are some characteristics we look for.
Preliminary data and calendar for this HUGS - Royapuram project will be posted here soon.
What did we learn : that we need more volunteers, and the volunteer:children ratio needs to be 1: 5 or less, that we need to have a rota system on paper for handing out toys so that all the children can have a go at all the toys. Most importantly, we learnt that a Dermatology camp is an immediate necessity. Since this would easily be considered an in house thing, that is what we are doing on the 14th November, at Royapuram. The morning would be a play learning session as was the last one, while the afternoon would be dedicated to the Dermatology camp. We have spoken to 3 medical companies - and they were happy to provide free sample drugs for the camp- I will put up the names once I have the confirmation on hard copy.
