As part of their NSS project, a group of students from Techno India, Salt Lake (including myself) visited SOS Children’s Village, located at Block-BK, Sector-II, Salt Lake, Kolkata-700091, and successfully organized a “Sit-and-Draw” Competition with 28 children of the orphanage on 15th November, 2010.
On the receipt of a letter from the Registrar of Techno India, we were permitted to work on the premises of SOS Children’s Village on 15th November, 2010 from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM by the Director of the orphanage. On the scheduled date, we reported at the office of the orphanage at 4:15 PM. However, the actual event could not be started before 5:00 PM as some of the children could not report in time. (The ones who had, had a playful time with some of the group members). The contest was originally supposed to be held with children of age group 6-14, but seeing the overwhelming enthusiasm from the children’s side, it needed to be revised to 6-17!
The topic for the children in the age group of 11-17 was “Save The Environment”; but the younger ones had no such restriction and were asked to draw anything they wanted. We provided all materials—drawing sheet, colours, etc. The children started their painting at 5:15 PM. In the meantime, we noted down their names, age, class (if they were enrolled in any school) and other relevant details. We also got the time limit extended to 6:30 PM as the delay in the starting was totally due to unforeseen reasons. The orphanage office took total responsibility for the delay and co-operated with us by extending the time limit.
By about 6:20 PM, almost all of the students had completed their paintings; so we started collecting them and arranged them according to their age. After cross-checking the submitted paintings with our list, we distributed chocolates and pens among them as a consolation prize. (As the number of students was more than what was planned beforehand, two of our group members had to buy some additional gifts.) We announced that the prizes for the contest winners would be handed over within a week after evaluation.
The fact that the entire event turned out to be a grand success was evident from the genuine smiles of the children. We too, enjoyed this event a lot; and look forward to organising more of such events in the future!!!