SAIIER 2016:Kuilapalayam Cultural Centre
 Isai Ambalam School |
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 Life Education Centre |
| Kuilapalayam Cultural Centre | ||
Introduction
The village children and youths are our future, and are all gifted with a lot of talents and possibilities. Sadly, these days, many of these children end up behind their television screen, or roaming around aimlessly on the streets. By providing free time activities in a safe environment, Kuilappalayam Cultural Centre (KCC) hopes to bring a positive change in their lives.
The purpose of the project can be seen as 3-fold:
- A place for relaxation and recreation: After a full day of school, it is most important for a child to be able to relax and set the mind free: KCC provides a safe environment in which children can put their worries aside, relax, and have joyful and memorable moments together.
- A place to meet each other: By creating this safe environment where everyone is welcome, the children get the chance to meet new people: in KCC, children are meeting each other and new people every day. Exchanges happen, and friendships grow.
- A place where you can learn and discover: Next to the recreation and new connections, the cultural centre provides chances to learn new things: by several activities, from Bharatha Naattiyam to Silambam, evening tuition and art classes, the kids can try out, learn, and discover what they like and what they are good at.
Activities of the year
Kuilappalayam Cultural Centre opens the doors every Monday to Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. At those moments, the centre provides several valuable free-time activities for the village children.
Evening tuition
- Monday – Saturday, 5 to 8 p.m.
- Support: Nandhini, Vally and Mahalakshmi
From June 2016 to April 2016, we provided homework tuition for every child who needed some support with their homework. Since it was sometimes difficult for the kids to find help in this, from Monday to Saturday our 3 teachers Valli, Nandhini and Mahalakshmi are there from 5 to 8 to guide them in exercises and check if they understand the topics well. Every day, around 30 students are benefiting from this activity.
Bharathanaatiyam
- Saturdays 6 to 8 p.m. and Sundays 10 a.m. to 1 p.m
- Support: Punitha
Every weekend, Punitha, a teacher from Kuilappalayam, provides dance classes for the children in the cultural centre. She teaches 2 basics of Bharatha Naatiya, Thattadavu, Naattadavu, Alaripoo, Thillana and Pushpaanjali. By this program, the children get the opportunity to not only discover the traditional arts of Tamil Nadu, but also to try and learn something new from them.
Silambam
- Sundays 9 to 11 a.m.
- Support: Pazhanivel from Mamallan Silambam Group, Pooranankuppam and Balu from Kuilappalayam
Every Sunday, we conducted Silambam, a Tamil traditional art class for the village students. This programme helped and guided them as a great meditation to brainstorm a lot about why they had to learn this activity and how it would help them to maintain their physical, vital and mental concentration.
Art class
- Monday – Friday (February to May 2016), 6:30 to 7:30
- Support: Laura De Jaeger, intern/volunteer
From February to May 2016, the cultural centre received a Belgium intern/volunteer, and was provided daily art exercises for the children. The program focuses on discovering different materials and ways of creating art. From painting, working with sketches, to using recycled material and different kinds of craft work, the kids discover that art is not only created by drawing with pencil on a paper, but that you can see art in so many things. The program focuses on stimulating the kids to use their creativity, thinking outside the box and to build on their self confidence.
Summer Camp 2016
- May 2th to May 6th, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
During school summer holidays, a lot of students in Auroville have opportunities to participate in camps focused on different activities. To give the same chance to the village students, we provided a five-day summer programme. In this programme, activities included lots of fun games, sports competitions, craft work, making musical instruments, free stage and trekking. We took them to Mamallapuram as a one-day trip. We also introduced a new awareness programme of the Solid Waste Management group. Along with these activities, we took the time to make a beautiful mural on the new KCC building together with the students. The summer camp turned into a big milestone for our KCC.
Independence Day programme
On Independence Day – August 15, 2015 – we conducted a one-day programme for the village students. There were many activities including indoor games competitions (e.g. chess), Kural (Tamil poems) reciting, essay writing, and speech presentations. This programme was a chance for students to show their competencies, and were engaged during the whole day. Hari (SAIIER Transport Service) and Suryagandhi (Auroville Dental Centre) were invited as chief guests for the prize distributions.
Outcomes
Every day, 20 to 30 students from Kuilappalayam and nearby villages (Lakshmipuram, Bharathi Nagar) came to the cultural centre. By creating a safe environment and welcoming a lot of children of different schools, the centre offers children the chance to meet new people and create new friendships and networks. To communicate, exchange and create new friendships is an important part of every kid’s life.
Next to that, by participating at the different activities, the children discover that there are many possibilities for spending free time doing positive things: discovering, learning new skills. Every program gives the children first of all the chance to enjoy and have a nice experience together with others. The children also get the chance to improve their skills, and discover, use and develop their talents.
Out of our Dance and Silambam classes, a group of performers was formed and had opportunities to show what they learnt by performing at local events.
Reflections
Our centre is acting like a community gathering centre. Many different school students are able to meet each other and spend their free time with many valuable and joyful activities.
We noticed after talking about the fees, we lost a number of students who had been coming to our Cultural Centre. Since our goal to reach as many kids as possible, we are planning to find alternative ways of funding without losing our students.
We also noticed that our present place is very small for all the students. So we are thinking about arranging our new place efficiently with the needed infrastructures and materials.
We feel that we are losing the cooperation of the parents in our project. The parents play a big role in the students’ lives and so we wish to work more closely with them, for example by inviting them for a monthly meeting.
Conclusion
After two years of working as a sub-unit of SAIIER, we feel that we are growing constantly and playing a very big role in the students’ lives. There are still ways to learn and apply to the further development, but we are looking forward to continuous support and to the positive future of our Kuilappalayam Cultural Centre.