Dear (s)
SYMA has been in the field of social service for more than 3 decades now and for almost 20 years we have been conducting Child Fest. Besides our focus area of medical area (the running of free dispensary), education (our own tuition centre, providing uniforms to children, educational aid), civic concerns (recent desilting and cleaning of the temple tank, public amenity maintenance), we have always felt the need to imbibe in children the qualities of competitive spirit and participation in public events and to inculcate in them the thinking of doing something for the society. We have experienced that not all school children are forthcoming and sometimes lack the correct the environ for pushing them ahead. May be the cooperation or support of parents and teachers could be not in the right amount.
Our competitions aimed at bringing out the best in children has seen the numbers growing and every year the no. of schools that are participating is growing. We do find the winners in our event promptly mentioned in the School notice board and in their house magazines – which shows the value of a prize in our competition. We ensure that no child returns empty handed and take special care in taking care of the children. Each participant gets a certificate with their name incorporated, a participation gift and warmth in reception.
We plan our events and have a team of volunteers in place for proper conduct of the show and have discussion after the conclusion to find out the lacunae. Your suggestions are always welcome in this regard.
Yesterday (Saturday 6th Feb 2010) milling crowd of students and anxious parents marching to the venue – The NKT National Girls Higher Secondary School, Dr Besant Road, Triplicane, Chennai 600 005.
At 8.30 am the programme was inaugurated with invocation of God, Presidential address by TA Sampathkumar. Doctors who have been rendering yeomen service at our Medical Centre and HM of Muslim High School who has been helping us in the tuition Centre – SYMA Growth inaugurated the function by lighting the traditional kuthuvilakku. Photos of the function would soon be available on our website www.syma.in
The first event was the Singing competition (classical). Next was the drawing competition for 6th to 12th further divided into 3 groups. At 11.30am Film songs Singing competition followed.
At 1.OO clock, the Quiz Preliminary round for two groups – a written one at that – 20 Questions to be answered and top 4 teams qualifying for the finals was conducted. This was conducted by myself, greatly assisted in preparation by my friends Sridhar Joshi, Rajaram and B Sundar. It has been our endeavour to keep the children interested in the day to day happenings and develop their general knowledge manifold. There were no questions on the tinseldom but garnished with sports (ala cricket). A separate posting on the Quiz can be seen in the blog, where I have posted 10 interesting Qs as well.
The much fancied competition where mother fight to out vie each other followed. This year saw more than 500 children being lined up for this. The volunteers of Soundarya Rathnamala have been of great help in organizing these, as they had done in the past many years.
To have semblance of order and to be of convenient to the children, we have divided the prize distribution into two. The winners of the Fancy dress competition were presented the awards on 6th itself. The main function is to take place today.
The Prize Distribution function started at 6.30 pm. It started with a prayer song rendered by Mrs Prema Krishnamohan of Soundarya Rathnamala. The programme was compered by S Sampathkumar, Editor BLISS (Yours Truly), TA Sampathkumar made the presidential address.
The Guests of Honour were 1) Mr Gopinath of Vijay TV “Neeya Naana” fame and 2) Mr V Jayaprakash, Sr VP of Star Health & Allied Insurance Co Ltd.
Gopinath enthused the children with his speech. He advised that Indian parents have to learn appreciating more. He said that the gene factor ensured that Indian children were far intelligent than their counter parts in other countries but here the parents have the habit of thrusting their dreams and aspirations into the child and sometimes impede their natural growth. The child must be given the space to develop in the area of his choice. Whilst parents do appreciate for the achievements of their ward, they do not appreciate naturally and do not support the children in small things – unconditional appreciation would take the child to greater heights. Whenever the child achieves something, the society would appreciate but in preparation of that, it should be the parents. Indians tend to become obese which is not good for their health.
His speech perhaps would have made the parents rethink on what they had been doing to their children. Mr Jayaprakash, the Insurance Expert spoke briefly but impressively.
Mementos were presented to them by Sanjeevi who is the coordinator of this programme and our Secretary MA Sadagopan. Secretary SR Ragunathan gave the vote of thanks.
The prize distribution followed. The function ended with National anthem.
With regards – S Sampath kumar.
Congratulations on your 100th post. -kannan
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