the tree of hope.

To prepare for this year's United Games program in the Boys' Home, our interns Martina, Andrea and Rike prepared a "Tree of Hope" with the boys -- the idea was to find out what the boys want to become when they grow up and to see how we, as an organisation, can help to bring those dreams to fruition. What began as a simple tree painted on posterboard grew into a collaged tree complete with grass and even a rabbit, courtesy of Martina. Prabhu spoke to each of the boys about what they want to be, and their dreams - ranging from becoming a pilot to a teacher to numerous carpenters and tailors - were written on hands that they had traced, cut out, and coloured. It was a fantastic project, and the boys loved helping with it, from colouring their hands to tirelessly tearing out brown pieces from magazines to then glue on to the tree. Here's hoping we can help even one of those dreams come true.

children's day.

To celebrate Children's Day this year, Dorothy organised a program for our Kiddie School kids. Because many of the children had traveled back to their native villages for various festivals in the past few months, Kiddie School had been put on hold for some time, and we thought this would be a good way to re-start that program.

Instead of me describing the events as usual, I've stolen an excerpt from one of our intern's blogs (thank you, Martina) and will let her describe the day for you:

our belated children's day workshop - wherein we played games, sang songs, and showed of gymnastic 'talents' - was so successful today that we extended it to also include a colouring workshop in the afternoon! it was a lot of fun, even though many balloons were popped (i hid) and musical statues failed a little bit...

we also provided food in the form of tiger biscuits (yum!), alpenliebe caramels and boiled eggs. the latter is to ensure that they get their daily protein intake, at least for today. there was also juice which the kids loved and then also forced me to drink...how kind!

they're like little monkeys; they all climbed on top of us and clambered around to the point where rike was carrying up to 4 children at once! it really surprised me that when one of the taller girls climbed onto my back i could barely feel her, literally. it was as if i was carrying the smallest baby: i've had heavier bags while i've been here! (though that's hardly surprising as i absolutely cannot pack).