Hello Parents,

A warm (literally!) welcome to the new academic year. Kids arrived desperate to meet everyone and talk to their best buddies. All of us welcomed each other with claps and cheers. They all look much bigger and taller, some of them were tanned and a few elder ones now have a sculpted face.

After a lot of hugs and greetings. We all sat in a circle and shared how we spent our holidays. Quite evidently they had so much to share that we had to put a 2 minute timer for each of us to speak. We heard a few embarrassing and many hilarious stories while having samosas. Thanks to Pankaj!

Revisiting of LC rules

We discussed and remembered all the rules of LC. There were a few rules that need to be amended and a few new ones to be added.

Elections

We had the election for the positions of Judiciary Chair, Seva Minister and Resource Minister. At the beginning only girls were enthusiastic about standing for election, then all of us rallied to have gender parity and got a few boy candidates to participate. Nevertheless, everyone voted girls to power.

Sevas

We discussed whether or not to continue with Sevas. A few vehemently opposed, while a few determinedly guarded this decision. Barring 4, rest everyone (17) agreed to doing seva. Facilitators tried to understand if its a feeling of touching dirty things or a feeling of doing a low dignified job or any other kind of unpleasantness that is stopping them. We were glad to find that that wasn’t the case, they simply felt bored to pick up the broom. Some of them wanted good partners during seva.

Consequences

We reviewed everyone’s consequences once again. We also discussed about the consequence of staying away from LC for a week. We figured that for quite a few staying away from LC is not like a consequence, in fact they would like it. So we went back to how we arrived at this consequence. What do we understand of a person who repeatedly breaks rules, even after many reminders? This would mean that the person doesn’t value LC or respect its people, atleast that is what majority of us thought. So with that in mind we all decided that that person can stay at home for a week, so LC can function unhindered. It was not with a view to punish. The hardest consequence in fact is to keep repeating one’s individual consequence for an extended time. How long is still undecided. We also have formed a consequence review committee with six children, 3 boys and 3 girls.

Electives and Time Table

We discussed about the various electives that will be on offer. We are calling quite a few external facilitators this time. In the quest to try everything, we have turned the TT upside down, meaning now kids will play as soon as they come and all the sessions will be later. This is to avoid the tedious task of calling them for sessions. Let them play to their heart’s satisfaction first. The potential downside could be, that they might be exhausted during the sessions. Let’s see what happens next week.

Body Awareness

This is not a session but an awareness talk. We spoke about good touch and bad touch. What are the parts of body that we call private, etc. With the older ones we showed them a clipping of a movie called Cairo Bus 678. This is to sensitise children about sexual harassment in crowded or public places. What is to be done when you are a victim and when you see something like this happening to others, was discussed. Everyone had lots of questions and curiosities. This false notion that boys are not harassed was also discussed.

Housekeeping and beautification

After visiting Aarohi and BeMe, some of the children (and facilitators) have become aesthetically conscious. They want to organise, tag and label things. Some of them want to name our rooms by the names of Greek Gods! (How utterly absurd! I just hope they don’t pass it in the judiciary) Few of the bigger children helped in cleaning and setting up corners. Some of them put cardboard sheets on the jungle gym to in order to make seating space. There is going to be some painting next week too.

We put tarp sheets on our roofs to cover for the monsoon and are all set to welcome some change in weather. Hopefully it arrives ASAP!

Hope you all have a wonderful week ahead,

LC