Volunteers Voice: Sports Day at Viveknagar School!
I’ve always believed that nothing shapes a person better than sports. It teaches discipline, leadership and much more.. But most importantly it teaches us to accept and learn from failures. To know that we’ve played a small part in imparting these qualities in the kids, warms my heart!
It was amazing to see that all of kids were interested to take part in one or the other games. The zeal they displayed throughout the event, across two weeks, is something that I’ll never forget.
One of the moments that stood out for me was when this particular kid, who could not talk, lost a very close game in a tie breaker and came up to me to ask for the result because he could not follow what we were saying. When I told him that his team had lost the game, with a sad expression on my face, he told me, in his own sign language, that it was okay and that his team played well and that’s what matters! I can’t describe in words the maturity with which he handled it. I had big smile on my face then…and felt really good to have been a part of this.
Hoping to be a part of more such events in the future and learn from the kids!
– Raghav (Weekend Volunteer, Bosch Employee)
Over the last two weekends we had sports day at Viveknagar Government School and it was a wonderful experience!
The event was driven by an energetic and passionate group of volunteers from Bosch and FSL India.
We started planning for this event 2 weeks in advance and all the volunteers brought some amazing ideas to make it a success!
At the school, we have students from classes 1 to 10, since class 10 students were having exams they couldn’t be a part of this program.
It was the hard work, wonderful planning and execution of the volunteers that brought smile on the faces of these kids.
In the initial planning phase, we thought of using the auditorium to conduct indoor games for the students of classes 1 to 4, and to have outdoor sports for senior classes in the school playground.
During the first weekend, we had amazing support from the school administration as well as our dedicated volunteers, we divided ourselves in small groups and started executing as planned, we had indoor games like Carrom board, Chess, Sack race, In and out, Lemon and the spoon, etc. games for junior classes and for senior classes we conducted outdoor sports which included : Kho kho, Relay race, 100 meter sprint, Volleyball, Tug of war, etc.
The reaction of students were really satisfying as they were so happy and excited for these games which they thoroughly enjoyed, some of the students had really good skills, this amazed many of our volunteers and the school authorities.
Continuing with the same energy, we started our 2nd weekend and there was a huge excitement around the kids for a particular sport which was Kabbadi, every kid wanted to be a part of it, so we dedicated the second weekend completely for Kabbadi, we had a total of 6 teams with 8 members in each squad, the team consisted of students from all classes, their energy, passion and drive towards these games inspired all of us and motivated us to plan and bring better and more games the next time we plan to conduct sports day, this time we had time from 9 am to 11:30 am, next time we will request the school authorities to extend the timings so that we can come up with some more exciting activities.
All in all, the idea of these two weeks was to make sure that the students understand the role of sports and games in their daily life, how it helps us be physically and mentally fit, in realizing the spirit of sportsmanship, team building and discipline.
We had amazing interactions with the school students during this time as well, this helped us understand their area of interest, approach and mindset and we will definitely discuss amongst our team on how to take this forward so that we can help them in their career building and to become better individuals by realizing there potential.
Over the last two weeks all the volunteers along with the students had an amazing time! It was a wonderful and unforgettable experience for all of us and we hope to soon conduct more such events for the children and bring more smiles and happiness to them.
– Aman (Weekend Volunteer, Bosch Employee)