Open Day in Mumbai

Close on the heels of the open day in Pune, there was one more open day for the Little Angels school in Mumbai.

This time it was on a larger scale with more students and more parents.  The first photo that I clicked was of this young boy trying to convince the customer about the quality of the products that were on display and sale. 

As usual, after the open day the parents had a visual treat to all the products that were displayed by Kalanidhi 

The sale was brisk and it was good to see that things were getting sold at a fast pace. 

While the parents and the students were busy, I just ambled around the school. These happy happy murals on the staircase must have greeted many students as they climbed up the stairs. 

I liked these three drawings on one of the boards 

What a great feeling it must have been for Ansh Obhan when he saw this little note on the notice board (and also a boosting factor for other students) 

In this age of cell phone and texting, a good reminder of simple polite words which is seldom used now a days.  

It was good to see the children’s face light up when they introduced the parents to the teachers  

Kalanidhi had also organized a food stall with the food items reasonably priced. 

I have heard the Gurur Brahma, Gurur Vishnu, many times, but never felt it more meaningful than when I saw it on this notice board:

While leaving the premises, I saw this flex board kept at the entrance. 

Probably my next visit will be to the Kalanidhi Production Centre.

Open Day in Pune school

Had the privilege to be in Little Angels school in Pune during the open day 

It was nice to see the parents trickling in one by one, meeting the staff, and being handed over their kid’s progress report for the semester. 

I had a glance at some of the answer sheets while a parent was going through it. 

A good and simple way of testing children having ADD and ADHD. 

I found Mr Jehangir, (the founder of Little Angels) greeting every parent and chatting with them. 

At the venue, there was an exhibition cum sale of the items made by these children (organized by “Kalanidhi”)

Most of the items were pertaining to Diwali, as the festive season was round the corner.

Some of the kids were keenly inspecting the exhibited items

while others preferred to try out their regular activity in school, or pose for me.

While the parents were busy, I engaged Mr Jehangir in a conversation, asking him how he came up with the idea of opening a school like this. He said that he was a flight purser in Gulf air and was also helping his father in running their eatery in Colaba.

Once he happened to visit an exhibition run by Dilkush, a school for mentally challenged children. Very soon he found himself getting enrolled for a training program for teaching special kids. A male special educator was unheard of in those days. It was a tough battle for him at every step.

After completing the course he approached the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. Maybe his grit and determination helped him in procuring some land from BMC at Bandra and that is how the first school of Little Angels came up in 2004.

He said his biggest challenge was to convince the parents that these children need to go to a special school where they are given vocational training.

Most of the parents are just worried about their children getting “proper education”  

According to Jehangir “These are children who have normal and sometimes very high IQ, but who have to be taught differently. They can read, write and some can do very complex mathematics” I was suddenly reminded of Dustin Hoffman’s role in the 1988 movie “Rainman”.  

picture source : internet

Coming back to the exhibition, one of the items on display was this oil free pickle and I picked it up immediately as I recollected reading about consuming oil free food for good health. The bottle could not have come at a better time