We visited the hospital once every alternate week which isn’t that often but we used the time productively, getting to know some of the kids better by doing simple drawing activities with them. Unfortunately we were not allowed to have any games that involved physical exertion since they are not fit enough so our options were very limited. Of course we didn’t let that stand in our way! The kids seemed to be very fond of drawing but we wanted to make the interactive sessions more interesting and less monotonous.
On one of our visits, the teacher in charge drew some pictures of turtles on cardboard which we got the kids to colour in. We then taught them how to cut a slit through part of the shell and staple it so that it’s shaped like a cone. They were overjoyed, especially when I got them to press the stapler down!
A similar activity was cutting out strips of paper, handing them out to each of the kids to decorate and stapling them together to make a paper chain. We hung them on the doorway for all to admire.
Change of plans
What we wanted do to raise money was to have a bake sale at school and we were all very enthusiastic about it as we sat at one of our meetings planning. However when we informed our principal, Mr Coles, of our plans he joined us, insisting that we should brew up a more creative means of collecting money. Since there’re plenty of children in Sri Lanka who are underweight, it didn’t seem right to sell sweet food to the OSC students who would eat them just for the sake of eating. Refusing to be disheartened, we soon came up with alternative ideas: using the kids drawings to make postcards was one and we thought of making wrist bands with a Hope for Kids logo (which we have to come with!).
A lil bit of sunshine
The next time we visited we were eagerly looking out for possible post-card-material drawings and we made a very fascinating observation: most of the kids’ drawings involved the sun. Although many children draw suns, we thought this would be perfect for our logo as it symbolises happiness and hope. We scanned in our favorite drawings and edited them during our meeting to get them ready to send to the printers.
Sparkly clean J
Just outside the playroom, there’s an enclosed space with plastic toys such as cars and rocking horses that are too large to be placed with the smaller toys inside. One of our visits was dedicated to clean this space entirely for a considerable amount of filth has accumulated on them. Equipped with our arsenal of rubber gloves, brooms, mops, disinfectants and dustpans we scrubbed every surface within our reach until we had cleaned the area the best we could to make it safer for the kids to use.
Christmas surprises!
All too soon, we were faced with the last visit for the semester and we were determined to make it as special as possible. We all played our part: balloons were brought in to add in some festive cheer, gift packs for each of the kids (comprising of a drawing book, pencils and an eraser), funky cardboard sunglasses and to top it all off…our Bio teacher dressed up as Santa! The van ride was spent cutting up the sunglasses for the kids to colour and blowing up balloons. We gave one out to ever kid we saw but unfortunately there weren’t enough of them so some had to be disappointed. However, no one went away empty-handed because Santa made sure everyone got a gift pack. We put on some music to create a brighter atmosphere and busied away with last minute cardboard sunglasses as our departure time came nearer. It was our most difficult yet most successful session we’ve had: some kids didn’t get a balloon and even started crying but it was obvious that everyone was happy at the end of the day. Reassuring the kids that we’ll be back soon with more balloons next year, we closed this year’s last Hope for Kids chapter and waved goodbye.
