Fire on the mountain – run, run, run!!

Our chilly Sunday morning started with an play workshop with 18 bright eyed children in a slum near Hahnemann Chauraha in Gomti Nagar, Lucknow. Parents of these children work as rag-pickers / garbage-pickers, and the slum is located right in the middle of a huge garbage dumping ground.

The workshop started with a few spunky girls asking us if we were there to ‘teach’ or ‘play’. When we said ‘play’, they went and called more children to join us. Upon asking, these girls shared with us that they regularly play games of  ‘hopscotch’ and ‘gitti’. It is amazing how both these games have permeated through generations and social structures!

We got the kids warmed up with a few energizers followed by a baal geet (children’s rhyme). It being our first workshop with this group of children, some were rather shy but curious and so we focused on rapport building and gauging the children’s ability to understand & respond to instructions. We played dumb charades and ‘fire on the mountain’ with them. It was lovely to see the elders in the community come out too and cheer the children on.  At the end of the workshop, the children told us excitedly that they would now include these games in their everyday play too!

Our meeting and interaction with these children was made possible by the support of Pallav Joshi from TCS  Lucknow and Mudit Shukla from Asha for Education . Thanks Pallav and Mudit!

So long, until our next visit and workshop!