24th December was Xmas time in office... Something different and special though was that we visited an NGO called SMILE :), the same NGO that we as KPMG are supporting at the marathon.
KPMG has a PML initiative whereby each director is responsible for a group of employees and has to address any work related issues and also has a quarterly budget which he/she has to spend on the said group of employees... Our PML came out with a truely unique idea to spend the amount on a special occasion like Christmas...
And so it was decided that we visit the NGO "SMILE"... Few colleagues volunteered to get gifts, toys and food for the children... We had a rough estimate of about 80 children and accordingly the arrangements were made... A different kind of vehemence was seen in few of my colleagues, who sat post office hours wrapping all those gifts..
On the day we took cabs and reached the school near girgaun chowpathy where the kids were... A group of about 55 kids along with few teachers and volunteers were all so happy to see us there... We had just been there to interact with them and try to make them happy... But, the kids had something different in store for us... The kids seemed to be roughly in the age group of 8-15... They had planned christmas competition, whereby they had short roleplays, jokes and shayries, singing and dancing competition...
Their performance was just nonpareil and all of us had hilarious time for the 2 hours we were there... Something worth mentioning is the immense confidence and energy levels that the kids possessed... They managed to make us have our eyes glued to their performances... As some kids performed we could see the amount of support that the kids in the audience had ... with their constant applause (much louder than an audi full of people could applaud), an amazing show of healthy competition and team spirit, apart from loads of love and affection. A break was taken after role plays, shayris and jokes for food and gift distribution.. Post which we had the dancing competition.. dancing to the tunes of hare ram, teri aankhein bhul bhulaiya and jingle bells the kids could put any amateur tapping his/her feet... Then followed the singing competition where we came to know that some of the singers were selected by tata communications in their competition at the semi final levels. A perfect show of talent these kids were no less than any other kid... Infact, they were very very high on confidence and a desire to do something....
We had gone with an intention to make them happy, when we turned back to return to office we found that what we had got in return was probably much more than what we planned for the kids... and none of us was willing to leave the place
As they say you always get back more than what you give away...
All in all, it was just a superb and well thought initiative!! 2 hours very well spent!!
KPMG has a PML initiative whereby each director is responsible for a group of employees and has to address any work related issues and also has a quarterly budget which he/she has to spend on the said group of employees... Our PML came out with a truely unique idea to spend the amount on a special occasion like Christmas...
And so it was decided that we visit the NGO "SMILE"... Few colleagues volunteered to get gifts, toys and food for the children... We had a rough estimate of about 80 children and accordingly the arrangements were made... A different kind of vehemence was seen in few of my colleagues, who sat post office hours wrapping all those gifts..
On the day we took cabs and reached the school near girgaun chowpathy where the kids were... A group of about 55 kids along with few teachers and volunteers were all so happy to see us there... We had just been there to interact with them and try to make them happy... But, the kids had something different in store for us... The kids seemed to be roughly in the age group of 8-15... They had planned christmas competition, whereby they had short roleplays, jokes and shayries, singing and dancing competition...
Their performance was just nonpareil and all of us had hilarious time for the 2 hours we were there... Something worth mentioning is the immense confidence and energy levels that the kids possessed... They managed to make us have our eyes glued to their performances... As some kids performed we could see the amount of support that the kids in the audience had ... with their constant applause (much louder than an audi full of people could applaud), an amazing show of healthy competition and team spirit, apart from loads of love and affection. A break was taken after role plays, shayris and jokes for food and gift distribution.. Post which we had the dancing competition.. dancing to the tunes of hare ram, teri aankhein bhul bhulaiya and jingle bells the kids could put any amateur tapping his/her feet... Then followed the singing competition where we came to know that some of the singers were selected by tata communications in their competition at the semi final levels. A perfect show of talent these kids were no less than any other kid... Infact, they were very very high on confidence and a desire to do something....
We had gone with an intention to make them happy, when we turned back to return to office we found that what we had got in return was probably much more than what we planned for the kids... and none of us was willing to leave the place
As they say you always get back more than what you give away...
All in all, it was just a superb and well thought initiative!! 2 hours very well spent!!
That's a nice thing to do on Christmas ! :)
ReplyDeleteI have always believed that these kids do NOT need sympathies...they just need support...
Most of them are smarter than us and would do very well if guided in the right direction
Yep its real fun... infact these kids enthusiasm and desire can just make you feel so happy
ReplyDeleteAnd i absolutely agree that if they are guided correctly they can do better than most!!
Wow..what a wonderful experience! Such are the moments that make you feel worthwhile! The feeling of making someone soo happy is surely priceless..tell your kids about this..lolz
ReplyDeleteYep it is... I like the way you are involved with pratham. And ya thanks for the advice.. i shall surely let my kids know :)
ReplyDelete