A summer camp of 15 days for 25-30 students in the month of May for students in the age group of 5-15 years, focusing on holistic development defines Holiday Hoopla. This camp aims at bringing children from different socio-economic backgrounds to come together to enjoy and experience fun and learning in a healthy atmosphere where freedom and equality prevail.
“Teaching children to count is basic, but teaching children what counts is holistic, is the motto behind Young Achiever’s Holiday Hoopla,” say the organisers.
Launched by Kaingarya, Konnexions and Academy for Career Excellence, Young Achiever’s Holiday Hoopla in Kodambakkam and Chrompet is supported by Hindustan Unilever, Naturals India, Adithi Nursery and Primary School, Kodambakkam, Lady Violet School, Chrompet and many individual donors. Young Achiever’s Holiday Hoopla is taking place at Adithi Nursery and Primary School, Kodambakkam and at Lady Violet School, Chrompet from 9.30 a.m to 12.30 p.m.
This is a camp with a difference, in the sense that, it focuses on providing a platform for children from poor socio-economic backgrounds to enjoy and have fun at the same time and get exposed to many different areas like music, dance, art & craft, communication and sporting activities. “Holiday Hoopla aims at fulfilling the needs of society, it believes in empowering children with life skills that they will be able to use to support a living,” says Prema Sankar, Coordinator Konnections.
The highlight of this camp is that is it a ‘Zero Wadte’ camp. All the activities are done from old magazines, newspapers and recycled papers. Children are divided based on their age groups and they are given special care. They are introduced to activities based on their age, skill and understanding capacity.
Children gear up for the camp with some warm up exercises and then move on to group and individual activities. There are theme based days when the children interact with a professional and then do activities related to that, for example, an environmentalist engages them in an interactive session and then arts and crafts activities based on wealth out of waste are done. Many professionals have interacted with the students on the topics of importance of savings, grooming to make oneself presentable (sponsored by Naturals), oral and dental care, nutrition and eating right and character building.
Padma Subramanian, Director, Academy for Career Excellence (ACE), says, “The camp is designed based on the ASK Principle (Attitude, Skills and Knowledge). All these components are relevant and useful not only to adults but to children as well.”
The camp focuses on providing the children a platform to learn communication which is one of the important soft skills for any profession, arts including music and dance, crafts that kindle their creative minds and enhances critical thinking, character building which is done through value education and attitudinal skill building.
Kavitha Krishnakumar, Creative Head, ACE, says, “Montessori principle of mixed age groups is used to make learning automatic and easier.” Children watch inspirational videos and have group discussions based on the topic of the day. They also learn life skills such as stitching, quilling, jewellery making and cooking with no-fire recipes. Thus children enjoy a lot and in the process, learn very important lessons which will be very useful for them in the future. Small drops make a big ocean and the organisers of this camp are doing their bit towards the society by teaching the under-privileged children through this camp.
Contact Padma Subramaniam, director, ACE at 98406 50353. Email: padma.ace@gmail.com