Report for the quarter April 2011 to June 2011.

Greetings from Balavihar team.

The following are the events during the term.

Yoga work shop for teachers

During the first week of April we had a five day work shop on Yoga asanas and Pranayama for 25 teachers in the Pine woods High School.

After seeing the performance of the yoga lessons the children during the academic year the teachers wanted to learn a small practice session of asanas and pranayama. SmtSharadaRao our trustee and yoga teacher designed a simple programme which will help in the improvement of their health a non.stenuous one and had a workshop on theory and practice for two hours everyday for five days. This was followed by a practice session for three days. The teachers showed great interest and felt greatly benifitted by the practice.

Science workshop for Teachers

Anubhava Science foundation has been conducting science experiments in the govt. schools for the past five years and SmtGeetaArvind the person behind this work offered to train teachers from private schools during the vacation. The workshop was at Vijayanagar. On behalf of Balavihar, a science teacher Mrs.Suguna from Pinewoods High school was interested to attend the workshop and learn the experiments and make modules based the syllabus of the govt. text books which they follow in their school. The workshop was from 25th April to 29th from 9 Am to 5 Pm. It was in intensive workshop and MrsSuguna said that it was a very enriching experience for her and she made a presentation of what she learnt to the other teachers of the school. She will be conducting these experiments for children in the school. The things they used were all the waste which we usually throw. You can know more about their work in,

Summer camps for children.

NachiketaManovikasa Kendra Center. We have regularly classes in English, craft, theater, chanting etc. in the evening for two hours for the children studying in Marenahalli Govt. schoolVijayanagar. During the summer the school offered us the space to conduct activities for the students. There by a programme was created for the students for two hours. Twenty five to thirty students from the govt. schools participated in the activities. They were given the choice of indoor games or craft. All of them had outdoor games for one hour. They were provided with badminton rackets, volley ball, rings and skipping ropes. Indoor games like carom board, puzzles and a variety of card games and building blocks were provided. Eight girls did intensive needle work and made bags, purses and mobile pouches. The camp was from 18th April to 13th May for four weeks.

The children borrowed books for the library regularly.

Maths classes were conducted for 2 students from the X th class. Basic algebra lessons were taught.

Navadarshanam.

We have been providing resource material like books, games, puzzles, material for art and craft for the past three years for rural school children week end programme at Navadarshanam situated at Thally in , Tamil Nadur, near Anekal. At their request we have been conducting a three day camp for the children in the village. This year it was from 23rd. April to 25th April. About 50 students of age group 6 to 16 took part in the programme. Two resource persons who work for Balavihar conducted the programme. There were activities in theater, toy making and craft. After the two day workshop the children presented a cultural programme. They brought out a small skit from one of the stories they read with the help of our theater resource person. Basics of weaving was introduced which they would be continuing during their week classes.

Kanyakumari

During the month of March we had a work shop of needle work and Yoga for women who were working with K4 an organization of CCD. We found the women very talented and when we proposed of taking the responsibility in conducting activities for their children in the field of art and craft and some recreation activities they were happy to take it up. Following up our proposal two members from K4 came to Bangalore during the last week of March and spent a couple of days orienting themselves in starting a small programme during the summer.They were provided with a set of 100 simple English books from our library and some puzzles and games .

They were able to conduct a four day camp for around 30 children from Kanyakumari. During the first two days they shared their idea of having a programme for them and showed the puzzles and games and the craft activities. They had this in the place where the children recide. Later for two days they had a three hour programme at Bhagavathi Learning Center, Kanyakumari( a unit of CCD). The children were divided into three groups and three volunteers managed the activities. Mrs.Bala, the co.ordinator of the group reports that the response from the parents and the children was very good and that they wanted to have such programme during the week ends in future. She found that books in English were tough for them and has requested us to give them books in tamil(as most of them are studying in tamil medium). We plan to continue our work in this region in future.

The team members of BalaVihar had the summer break from May 14th to June 12th. The work at Pinewoods High school, Nachiketa evening class and Amarjyothinagargovt school started from the 13th of June.

The library membership at the Pinewoods High school is doubled this year from 100 to 200. Library cards and adding stock to the existing books, covering the books with plastic wrapper was done by the volunteers during the vacation. Preparations for the craft, yoga, puzzles and games , theater, library like collecting names of children for the respective activities etc was done during June and all activities in that school started on the 1st of July.

Classes in English language was started for class III, IV and V in Amarjyothinagar twice a week is taken up by a volunteer. Classes in Maths for class VIII, IX and X were taken up at Nachiketa evening class from June 13th. English classes are conducted for these students for students from Class V to VII. Around 25 students are enrolled in this center this year so far.

We are grateful to the supporters of this project for being able to carry out these activities.