A day with the anganwadi kids - I

I got an opportunity to visit one of the anganwadi in Bangalore through the DELL Youth Connect program. Dell has tied up with Akshara Foundation to support the anganwadis.
I had the opportunity to visit the anganwadi in Pattandur Agrahara, near ITPL. The visit to the anganwadi was a very nice experience for me. We had kids there aged between 3-5 years. Initial few minutes we did not know how to start with but once started, the rest of the time was just fantastic. Kids got connected with us as if they already knew us. Initially I was concerned that, not knowing the Kannada (local) language would be a barrier for me, but I must admit kids made it all so easy. We talked to them in Hindi, English & also in Kannada (those who knew the language) and they responded to all the languages with equal enthusiasm. And even they responded positively to Odiya(My mother tongue) too :-D. We played with them, we also used the Dell provided material like flash cards and number cards to help them recognize the numbers and alphabets. They could recognize all the vegetables in their play basket and I too learnt some of the Kannada names of those vegetables from the kids. We drew various shapes and pictures in their drawing books for the kids and they were so excited to fill those shapes and pictures with colors using their crayons. I was really surprised to see how neatly and beautifully some of those kids were filling the colors inside the pictures. I remember, I was very bad in drawings in my school days ;-). With every appreciation of their work they were getting more and more excited and were getting connected with us with extra enthusiasm. Never knew how the time flew and we have to come back to office :-).

Infrastructure wise the anganwadi was not so great. Many basic facilities were not present like toilets, drinking water etc. But do not want to put all those here as we have the appropriate forum for providing the feedback which will be consolidated and will be presented to the appropriate authority. Hope that works out and helps in improving the infrastructure.

Over all, I was looking for such opportunity for long time and thanks to the Dell Youth Connect team for providing me with such a wonderful opportunity. I am looking forward to more such opportunities and will also do it on my own on weekends by visiting the nearby anganwadis with my family.