Celebrate Children's Day With Us

Come 14th November and children all over India jump for joy as they fondly remember Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's birthday which is termed as Children's Day! As Whispering Hope had planned to visit the Carmel High School in Chebrol, West Godavari District, on the 15th November, the Principal and the staff decided to postpone the Children's Day celebration by a day. With volunteers rolling in from Bangalore (Fenella Patterson), Chennai (Judith Glassford) and ofcourse Guntur (Ranjita Rajagopal, Deena Kumari and ME), we headed out for our exciting rendezvous. The cab was packed with all the goodies that we had and off to Chebrol we went! 30 children were selected for a sumptious lunch during which time, prizes were given out for the Lucky Badge, popular games were played, everyone 'boogeyed' to the all time favourite 'put your right hand in, put your right hand out, put your right hand in and shake it all about; Do the boogey boogey....'. After a delicious lunch of Palav, fried chicken - that could put the KFC out of business, and raita, the children jumped for joy when a fun loving, dancing Santa Claus entered and added to their excitement. Gift bags containing toileteries and a few surprises were given out. Oh yeah! Christmas did come early to the sleepy village of Chebrol. From this little event, we moved onto the concert put up by the other school children. While wishing all the children success in their forthcoming exams, I made them do the 'boogey' too! The teachers, students and service staff were treated to a light snack of fruit cake, laddu, mixture and freshly brewed tea. Our Photos will also tell you how happy the kids were. You will see some of the little ones showing off their pretty necklaces brought in by our volunteers Deena Kumari and Judy. It gives me great pleasure to thank our main sponsors of our Children's Day event for their contributions - Carmel Lobow, Vivienne & Greg Manuel from Sydney, Sharon & Troy Gomes and Yvette & Vicky Mohan from Melbourne. Special thanks also go out to our volunteers mentioned above without whose help, I would have been left stranded without the wheels to get there! Thanks to Ranjita, Fenella and Wendy Daunt from Bangalore for pitching in towards the cab fare. Thanks also to Preethi Bagrecha for giving us those colourful bags from Roop Rang for the goodies. Lets give them all a big hand, shall we? Thank you Folks!