Nurturing Young with Kindness

14th Nov 2009: Today was a remarkable day for Umang Foundation as Team Umang organized its 125th activity.

The venue was Parivartan Shikshan Sanstha – a learning center located at Wadala East, Mumbai, which educates about 150 less fortunate children.



It was Children’s Day celebration organized by Umang Foundation. The day was made unforgettable for these children, filled with learning and laughter, lots of fun, food and frolic. It was organized with frenzied activity for hordes of children who swarmed the Shikshan Sanstha’s premises to be a part of the celebration.

Team Umang - Abhilasha Kale, Sandeep Bhanushali, Roli Sharma, Sweta Singh, Pooja Agarwal, Mukul Gaur, Chetan Karkhanis, Mayuri Parekh, Shiv Iyer, Shiva Reddy, Gaurav Gujare, Anup Palod, Shilpa Jaithalya, Ashish Goyal and Ashish Choudhary reached the venue before time to organize and decorate the premises.


The Sanstha had invited kids to come in two batches. Kids in the age group – 4 to 8 years came at around 10 am The second batch had kids in the age group – 8 to 12 years came around 01.00 pm.

The day started by Anup Palod, Member - Team Umang explaining the significance of Children’s Day to the kids. This was followed by snack distribution.

A painting competition was organized, for which a compass box (with pencils, eraser, sharpener and scale), crayons and drawing sheet were distributed. All the kids were engrossed in painting and trying to showcase their talent in the best possible way. The best drawings won surprise gifts while the rest of them got consolation prizes.


After this, caps and face masks were distributed to create a Fun Fair theme among the children. Since it was lunch time puri –bhaji, sheera and rasna (cold drink) were served.


These innocent kids were so happy about the whole event that they wanted to have some more fun.

Then it was a turn for the second batch of kids of age group – 8 to 12 years.

Gaurav Gujare, Member - Team Umang started by giving a short summary about the significance of Children’s Day.


This was followed by mimicry of Bollywood Stars done by Mukul Gaur Member - Team Umang. The kids were so thrilled that soon demands started pouring in for mimicry of their favorite stars.

Some of the talented kids sang the poems and songs taught by their teachers at the Sanstha.

Then, Anup Palod Member - Team Umang went on to sing ”Itni shakti humein dena Daatha” so beautifully that the kids started singing too. Asif Khan, a super-talented kid among the group, then sang an Arabic song. His voice was simply awesome. He even went on to explain the meaning of the lyrics.


This was followed by different games organized among the kids like ‘Tail the Donkey’ and ‘Passing the Parcel’. The winners got gifts and all other got gifts too.

Just before the celebrations were about to end, music and dance masti added an extra edge to the fun. Members of Umang Foundation were busy learning dance steps from the kids. Dancing to the tune of the latest Bollywood numbers made the environment all the more happening.


Mr. Gangadhar Shinde, Care-taker of Parivartan Shikshan Sanstha and all the teachers were thankful to the Umang Foundation from the bottom of their hearts. One of them rightly summed up by saying - ”Umang Foundation’s efforts to celebrate this day in a different way, was just driven by a strong urge to make it a memorable experience for these children who are otherwise deprived of such privileges”.


Photographs of the Day:
http://picasaweb.google.co.in/umang.pics/ChildrenDayCelebration2009#

Drawing Competition

January 26, 2009 : Drawing Competition among 70 Children at Fr Agnel’s Church, Bandstand, Bandra

Umang Foundation sought an opportunity to provide some time and service to the 70 boys living in Father Agnel's Orphanage, Bandra. It is headed by 1 prefect and 2 fathers and some faculty.

Every child was waiting for Umang Foundation group eagerly on the Monday Morning at Fr Agnel’s Church, Bandstand, Bandra. They were arranging their beddings and cleaning the room as time of Umang Members to reach the orphanage was coming closure. At 10:30 am Umang Members have reached the place as per the schedule of the day. All Children were very excited about drawing competition as most of them have good hidden talent within them.

To start with Ashish Goyal has introduced the Umang Members to the children and then a loud noise from every kid “Vande Matram” which clearly indicated that let’s start our real work for the day. Without wasting any single moment Ashish quickly explained the whole plan for the day and in the mean time Surender Pendam, Jayant Bansal, Ridhi Sheth distributed the Drawing Sheets and Crayons Colors along with pencil, sharpeners and eraser to every kid.

To start the drawing competition we had Mrs Archana Sarte, a professional drawing teacher who explained the basics of drawing to the children and explained the theme of the day – ‘INDIA’, theme of the day to give children a chance to draw their ‘Dream INDIA’ or what is the first thing they can think when they listen the word ‘INDIA’. It was again not surprising to listen from children “Fight against Terrorism”, “Pollution free India”, “Terrorist entered by Sea route”, “A Burning Taj Mahal Hotel”, “Save Tiger”, “Peaceful India”, “National Items”, “Indian Culture”, “Mother India”, “Save Trees”, “India on Moon”.


Umang Members have distributed the National Flags to all children to pin it up on their shirts.

One hour time was allotted to children and we started drawing competition at 11:20 am and it is really good to see that most of the children were really good in drawing which was evident in first 15 minutes with their pencil sketch on paper and as soon as they fill colors in the pencil drawn design on sheet, we were surprised to see the Impact of Terror Attacks in Mumbai in the mind of these children. They could not forget the Burning Taj Mahal Hotel or Attack at CST Station or Terrorist entered through the sea route on boat, Burning BEST buses and many similar picture in their mind is so dense that they could articulate the same over the paper.

There were 10 big tables which kids were using for drawing, have been distributed among the Umang Members to guide them and to judge the drawing after wards. Every Umang Members have identified the First and Second prize among their table’s children whom they were mentoring throughout the session, then Father Diniz Francisco visited all the tables and saw all the drawing drawn by kids and mentioned the spelling mistake to the kids and guide the correct word to them too. Then, Father Diniz Francisco and Father Victor distributed the gifts to the children.

By this time it is 1:45 PM, and its time for Lunch, Umang Members have arranged a Biryani and Raita for all the children. Umang Members have served the food to all the children which was followed by Samosa to all the children.

Post Lunch session has started around 2:30 pm where Games, Songs, Dance and Music were Planned. As per the plan Ansuman Mohapatra and Alpa Khatri started a game Dumb Shred with the children, Mrs Ghosh another Umang member explained the rules of the game and started a game with the children. After playing for 30 minutes they initiated a number game too.

At around 3:15 pm Himanshu Gupta and Jayant Bansal took a charge for Songs and Dance performance by the children. One of them told that we also play guitar and then 2 Children bring their guitars and sing a song on the guitar beats.

By this time it is almost 4:00pm and as per the pre-discussed schedule its time for wrapping up the day from this place and Its time for us to say Good Bye to all these wonderful children with cheering smile.

Few of children have shared their experience with Ridhi Sheth:-

Imran said:-
I loved this short programme very much, It was fun and Enjoyable. It was well organized. Umang Members were very good and Kind and I loved the drawing competition topic “INDIA” as it was not difficult nor hard, It was simple and easy topic which helped me to win the prize.
I loved the food very much, I love Raita. Thank You for so kind and grateful to us.

Ernest said:-
I find that there are NO Problems for us in the Ashram, we enjoy our life and get all the facilities. I found the event very nice and on my path O enjoyed it very much. The food was very nice and I enjoyed it. On my side I don’t need anything but we the children need your prayer and blessings for us and the fathers. Thank You for the wonderful time we enjoyed with you all. Thank You.

William said:-
I liked it very much and we enjoyed this programme very much, I thank Umang Foundation who gave us the delicious food and really we enjoyed this delicious food but next time we want to play tournaments like football, cricket and volley ball.

Sebastian said:-
We enjoyed this day, Today we like the program which was held like drawing competition and we enjoyed lunch and we thank all the volunteers. We thank Umang Foundation. We like this programme very much and if you come again we would like to play football tournament. We like this place. Thank you to all.


Shiva said:-
On 26th January 09, Umang Foundation conducted a creative programme for the children of the Agnel Ashram. The programme started at 11:00 am with the foundation members introducing themselves to the children.

They first conducted the drawing competition by dividing the children in the different groups, making them sit on the different tables.

Two winners were selected from each table and given 1st and 2nd prizes accordingly the competition came to end at 1:30pm. Soon after the programme lunch was given, by the facial expression of the children it could be clearly seen that they enjoyed the lunch very much.


For More Photographs :
http://picasaweb.google.co.in/umangfoundation/DrawingCompetitionAmong70OrphanChildrenRepublicDay2009?feat=directlink