Minutes of the meeting held on June 16th 2010
Main decisions:
Mentorship program is agreed upon for Royapuram Govt Home
Every HUGS volunteer will mentor a group of children on their overall personality development (including academic, sports, psychological).
The idea is to educate children beyond reading and writing, to acquire all skills, a sense of pride, to develop a positive attitude and to learn while having fun...
Starting off with a toy library concept,
We aim to harness the potential force of toys and games to mould the character and temperament of the children at the home, both in the home proper and in the reception unit. It firmly believes that toys and games (when chosen with the intended outcomes in mind), not only stop at amusing , but also develop imagination, stimulate creativity and spontaneity, encourage the free flow of thought, improve the power of observation & concentration and also teach values like discipline, honesty, truth, courage and so on. Play, and thus, healthy recreation and consequently socialization are essential for a child’s overall development.
For the mentor, it creates a clear syllabus on which to base his / her mentorship activities, and to provide a basic scaffolding for planning activities in a systematic manner. Not only does this ensure maximum utilization of the time that a mentor is able to share with the child, it also gives a mentor a sense of acomplishment, as, together with the child, he/she moves up the syllabus, and is simultaneously able to observe the development in his/her mentee.
Plan:
With the above goal, there are 2 things that are to be done:
1. Funding – Rs.30 K for the toy library
2. Volunteers
a. Each team member needs to get at least one volunteer for the mentorship program. Volunteer selection criteria include an ability to spare 2 hours/ fortnight, a commitment for atleast 6 such sessions, an innate interest in the welfare of the less privileged, and empathy towards these children. All other skills may be acquired on the job.
These activities need to be completed by July 10th.
Our plan is to start off with the first mentoring session on July 17th .
The date and venue of the next meeting will be intimated by email to the team members.
Interested individuals are encouraged to contact Renita (9894488797) or Feroz(9500059774), or mail in to us athugsindia@gmail.com, renitarajan@gmail,com orzeeferoz@gmail.com.
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.
