Colorss Runs a Brain Gym

WHAT WE ARE UP TO : Colorss Runs a Brain Gym

The Colorss’ team at the government school in Rajupura, Baroda, has recently ran a Brain Gym for students in Grades 1 to 4, to help them learn the numbers from 1 to 100. The children responded positively to the activity, and were able to learn the sequence of numbers through the creative brain game. 

 Students prepare for the Brain Gym

The Brain Gym conducted a housing activity, where students were given cards, which mentioned numbers 1 to 100. The volunteers would throw a set of dice and indicate the number on the dices on their own sheet. This would be related to a specific material within a house on the volunteer’s sheet, with a number on it. This number is then flashed to the students. Excitedly, the students would identify the corresponding number on their flashcards, mark the number and spell it out to the rest of the class.

Within 90 minutes, the students finished playing the game and were asked for feedback. Soon enough, we learned that after the activity, most of the students were able to learn all the numbers from 1 to 100. This is a huge accomplishment as a large number of students across four grades were able to recall a wide range of numbers as a result of the Brain Gym.

Students enthusiastically participate in the Brain Gym

This Brain Gym activity not only improved the students’ ability to memorise numbers from 1 to 100, but also greatly contributed to their personal development. The activity boosted their concentration levels and self-confidence in their own cognitive skills.

 Students pose during the Brain Gym Activity

The positive outcome of the Housing Activity within the Brain Gym led the Principal Mr. Kanti Bhai to express his interest in the activity. He appreciated the effort put into running the Brain Gym and encouraged the school to continue holding similar activities in the future. 

By Asyura Salleh

Celebrating 4 Colorss-filled Years! | Colorss Foundation

On the 15^th of September this year, Pune was witness to the 4^th Anniversary Celebrations of Colorss. Colorss foundation commemorated this occasion by organizing a flashmob [on 14^th of September 2012] to perform at Symbiosis Law School around noon time. Later that evening around 7pm, the same mob performed in Pheonix Marketcity, Pune.

The flashmob was organised by the combined efforts of almost 50 participants who were all proud of the fact that they had managed to come up with an innovative idea to spread their cause. As Sweksha Ballabh puts it, “From practicing all day and night for the flash mob, to performing it in front of over 100 people, the excitement that this event has brought to our lives is splendid. The event was very well planned and organized by an amazing team of volunteers. I am so glad that I got a chance to be a part of such a noble event”.

Aditi, who is a first year student in Symbiosis chimes in, “15^th September, 2012 was when we realized that working for a good cause can come with loads of fun, frolic, and dance. It was not just about the dance in the end or the socializing that was inevitable, it came with immense satisfaction. Having worked with Colorss Foundation in its various other projects, this one was definitely awesome”.

Flashmob at Pheonix Marketcity, Pune

Even the audience were left amazed by the team’s performance. A participant who was witness to the flashmob stated that, “The flash mob was a unique way to create awareness about the cause and about Colorss Foundation. It was an inspiration to all those who took part”. Some of the many faces behind this event include Nikita Puri, Abraham Verghese, Dhiraj Khatri, Stuti Prasad and Nikita Lamba.

From left: Stuti Prasad, Dhiraj Khatri, Nikita Lamba and Nikita Puri 

The next day afternoon, Colorss foundation continued the celebrations by organising a Walkathon from Symbiosis Law School to Pune Central, University Road. The Walkathon which covered a distance of approximately 5 kilometres saw about 50 participants who covered this distance with the knowledge that their effort was spent in raising awareness about a worthy cause.

For photo-updates click on these links: Flashmob : Walkathon: 

Although the celebrations are in the past now, Colorss Foundation has found a new lease of life in all the efforts that its volunteers put in for the event and is now fuelled with the positive energy it created to go through another year filled with the aim of reaching out to more underprivileged kids!
For Love,

“Who says you can have problems and you can’t smile also?”

 

Definitely you can…I saw and learnt this from these small kids who although came from a weak socioeconomic background, often separated families still had a smile on their faces and zeal to learn and change the way their life was.

While they were introducing themselves I noticed that they had family problems, e. g death of a parent or separated families. Most of the mothers worked in other houses doing the household chores to earn a living or fathers worked in factories or buildings as laborers.

It was an urge to teach small children which made me to join Colorss as a volunteer. My task which seemed to be very easy to me initially turned out to be a challenge for me. I was supposed to take a 45 min class, making children of class 6-9 standard write articles on a few topics.

I started with an article on My Ambition, where I had not only to explain the meaning of ambition to children but also had to assist each of them in framing sentences ,making them spell every word properly and translating their thoughts from Hindi to English. This took 30 min for me and there was hardly any time left for any other activity. It was a kind of surprise for me to see children of 8th grade unable to  spell  “will”  “have”  “doctor”  “because”.  I felt the presence of a loop hole in the education system where students of an English medium school were not well versed in spellings and general English.

I thought of doing it another way. Next day I divided them into teams and told them to ask spellings from the opponent team. This sense of competition made some of them to find difficult words from their text books such as “environment” and learn them. This little effort of the children was encouraging for me. I also introduced some games in the class such as “Bring a thing” where students had to bring specific objects from their teammates such as “A black Reynolds pen or a paper boat”. Although I could not work for a long time as my vacations were going to be over, but it was an experience I would cherish forever.Something definitely needs to be done somewhere and Colorss is an attempt to do it. After joining Colorss as a volunteer, with Anand sir’s support I was more than comfortable and enjoyed every bit of work. Anand sir’s briefing of everything about children, their background, talents, general behavorial tendencies were helpful to know children better. I would like to thank Anand Sir for giving me the opportunity and believing in me. It was something very different and satisfying I could have done in 4 years of my college life. I enjoyed it and learnt a lot from it.

Priyanka Trivedi

VIT Vellore

Volunteered with Colorss at Pune

Creative thinking started....students created their own story looking at an image

Create your own story with the help of an image was held at Baroda 'Colors of Life' project, by the Team Baroda. Here the volunteers showed the students the image below. Here the children were asked to look at the image and think what they can perceive.  They were asked to come-up with a story. This unconsious method has helped in creative thinking and opening the children. 

Image used for creating your own story.

The students came up with this story..

'There was a village called Rampur. A fair was held there one day. Everybody from the village went there. Rohit, a four year old boy, also went there with his parents. Rohit was delighted to be at the fair. He wanted to go to the balloon-seller, food-stalls, the magician, toy stall and the snake-charmer. In his excitement, he left his mother’s hand and got lost. When he couldn’t find them after a while he got scared and started crying. He cried so much that he became tired and fell asleep. His parents made an announcement in the fair asking people to find Rohit and bring him to them. A man found Rohit sleeping and brought him to his parents. His parents were very happy and grateful.'

We were delighted to read this and we hope even you would have enjoyed.

Team Baroda

Colorss

Joy on their faces was something we can never forget | Colors of Life ~ Baroda

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”  Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

When we first joint colors we didn’t know what to expect from the children. We didn't know how much they knew, what they would be interested in or how they would interact with us. We weren't even sure how we should interact with them. Therefore, our initial classes were not productive. The children did not stay interested in our classes for long and we began to have problems with the attendance. The boys would refuse to talk to us, preferring to talk among them, the girls were shy and we had difficulty in connecting with all of them.

After three months of fruitless discussions, us pestering them to write and them demanding to go out, we finally decided to change our approach for lack of satisfactory results. We spoke to our teachers and mentors and unanimously came up with the idea of doing more activities with the children. Since then, we have done a variety of activities with them like the ‘hero game’. In this, we asked each child to think of his/her favorite film character and tell us how they would respond to certain given situations.

This helped us to understand what they admire in their heroes and it made them think about what they would do in the same situation. We also conducted a quiz o Indian states and capitals. Though we had asked them to prepare beforehand, most of them didn’t bother. When we gave the teams which won kites as a prize, the joy on their faces was something we can never forget. They were genuinely so happy! Some of the others even came up to us and told us that they would come prepared next time. After months of frustration and disappointment with our work, we felt like we had finally achieved something!

Now, we feel more confident about our plans for the future. Though we had broken the ice some time ago, it is finally getting warmer.

Shreya and Ankita

Team Baroda

www.colorss.org

www.facebook.com/colorssfoundation

www.youtube.com/colorssfoundation

“ENHANCING” LIVES ~ Project Enhance

“ENHANCING” LIVES

Education is the key aspect that helps to build a child’s future. However education confined to the realms of textbooks and notebooks does not make the child ready to face the challenges of the world. Overall development of a child is of utmost importance for survival in the world of cut-throat competition. Thus providing basic elementary education to poor and underprivileged children is not enough to ensure a good future for them.

PROJECT ENHANCE uses sports and creative arts to brighten the world of children and contribute towards their overall development. Reaching out to the girl child is of utmost importance to universalize elementary

The project is currently carried out at Pune Municipality Schools

• Mahadji Shinde High School with 51 girls from 5th to 9th grade.
• Dr. Ambedkar Memorial School with 56 girls from 6th and 9th grade.

Both schools are in Pune Cantonment Board, Pune

Children take part in 30 minutes of martial arts and creative arts twice a week. This helps reduce stress, increase stamina, build confidence, developing a spirit of team work and makes education more interesting. In addition to this, professionals give the children talks on topics including body language, careers, family dynamics, communication skills and more. The result of this project is children who are disciplined, self-confident and perhaps most importantly, happy.

Women are given a secondary status in our society. Education of such a kind would help them let go off the inhabitations that hamper the development and growth of the girl child. After all they have to grow up and become women of substance, and this initiative of the COLORSS FOUNDATION helps them achieve this feat.

This novel idea that goes beyond bookish knowledge and helps improve and empower the girl child. All it needs is your contribution and time to touch new heights and change more lives.

LET US ALL COME TOGETHER AND MAKE LIVES FOR THESE CHILDREN A BETTER PLACE SO THAT ONE DAY THEY CAN MAKE THE NATION PROUD.

Contact- www.colorss.org to keep yourself updated follow us: Facebook Colorss

Tarishi Mishra

Requirements for creating a 3D anime ambassador

We at Colorss are Creating a 3D anime , which would represent Colorss Foundation all across the world. 


To achieve it we have got few requirements..


~ Requirements ~


1. We have already decided on the 'ambassador' need a volunteer to get a 3D model ready. 
2. Volunteers to write Jingles , that reflect the very essence of the Colorss Foundation.
3. Volunteers to write some stories , comic strips , where in the Mascot and Colorss Foundation are involved.
4. A video clip would work. A presentation which show the work of Colorss and the Mascot. To be posted on Blogs.
5. Searching for an intoxicating 'Voice' for the anime. - 


Share this with your friends and anyone interested pls email: emailcolorss@gmail.com or ping message! 


For more information:
www.colorss.org
www.facebook.com/colorssfoundation
www.youtube.com/colorssfoundation


Thank you,
For Love,
Anand

Calling Volunteers for Project 'Colors of Life' at Navprerna - a care club of Navrachana School, Baroda - Gujarat

Project 'Colors of Life' provides an answer to one of our nation's most troubling problems. Although more children are staying in school than in previous years, there are still too many students dropping out, even at the very earliest levels. This problem is especially prevalent among the poor and the disabled. Some studies estimate that as many as 50% of children will drop out before finishing the higher secondary stage. More than half of all children leave school before ninth grade. To reduce these rates, we have to figure out why so many children aren't finishing their studies.

Project 'Colors of Life' is going to start for the students of Navprerna a care-club of Navrachana School, Vadodara Gujarat. `NAVPRERNA`a programme to educate Less Privileged - a care-club of Navrachana School. The children come from slums of Sama Village. The women particiapnts of 'Project Urja - igniting the fire' our first vocational training program started in Baroda, Gujarat also belong to the slums of Sama Village. 

Students of 6th and 7th grade would be the part of our Project 'Colors of Life' and we aim to launch the first E-zine of Baroda chapter on 15th August. 

We are requesting volunteers to join us at Navrachana School. The timings are 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm on weekdays (twice a week - days would be confirmed soon) and on weekends i.e Saturday (1st and 3rd - 4:00pm to 5:30 pm)

Psychology students/ Psychologist/Students and any one who can contribute to this project are most welcome. Send us your resume at contact@colorss.org . Deadline 10th July 2011 latest by 6:00 pm

Thank you

For Love

Anand