Pankhudi Foundation Blog

37 Pankhudi Pune children showed off their creativity on the morning of 19th April, 2009. It all started with Ruby and Shrikant collecting them from Wakdewadi and getting them to the COEP boat club where close to 16 members of Jagruti from Infosys were already waiting for them.

The event started with each of the kids introducing themselves by name and favorite color!!! Mrs. Archana Naik from Infosys followed this up with a story. As the students were divided into 12 groups under 12 of the Infosys members, snacks were served too.

After snacks, the drawing material was distributed amongst the groups. Each of the kids was enthusiastically involved in showing off their creativity with the group head cheering each of them on.

The whole group was joined by Mr. Gautam Bandiwadekar, IBU head at Infosys Finacle and his son at 12 PM. Mr. Gautam was so impressed by the event and the work being done that he instantaneously expressed interest to continue such initiatives and contribute to them.

The event ended by 1 AM, with cakes and caps distributed amongst the kids in anticipation of the upcoming Pankhudi birthday!

The energy and commitment of all Pankhudi members involved, in particular Jyoti, Murthy, Ruby, Priti, Nivedita and Shrikant paid off with the event being a total success!

All of us at Pankhudi would like to thank all the Jagruti members and Infosys for organizing the workshop- giving the kids a colourfully creative break from their routine besides waking up the artists within the all-time-mastii kids!

Pankhudi Pune has selected its new office bearers after a detailed selection process. To access the Pankhudi belief on nurturing leaders and the expectations from Pankhudi leaders, please click here.

We hence take this opportunity to thank the outgoing office bearers who did an amazing job taking care of all aspects of events being organized by Pankhudi Pune, over the past year. They are:

Nivedita Ghonge (nivedita.coep@gmail.com)- Chapter

1st Jan, 2006

Blind School, Koregaon Park

This New Year celebration was something different, extremely special and very close to our heart. We gave a warm welcome to the Year 2006 at the Koregaon Park Blind School, on 1st of January, 2006.

All of us reached at the school at 5:00 PM. While Anand brought flowers (Gajraas) to decorate the premises, Shweta and Shantanu got Juice for the children. Dilkash and Shahzad along with the children (Shivaji, Basav, Jitendra, Rahul, Nishant, Deepak, Shadaab, Venkat and others) started preparing Bhel. They cut around 4 kg of onions, tomato and green chilies for the massive amount of Bhel. By that time, the younger kids had already started dancing on Bollywood numbers. Puneet played a melodious composition over the flute.

After making the Bhel , we moved to the hall where we witnessed some amazing performances by the kids. Later, we cut the 2 ½ kg cake that we had ordered the previous day. By 10 o’ clock, we were through with the celebrations. In the end, all the ~Pankhudi members too sat on the floor to join the kids for dinner that the kids had prepared themselves.

Overall, it was an extremely fulfilling experience. We realized that this was the best way one can bring in the New Year. The joy that you experience when u bring a smile on a child’s face is simply heavenly. We believe that through the celebration, we indirectly taught the children the importance of teamwork. By assigning the kids small tasks and giving them full authority over the same, we managed to inculcate in them a sense of responsibility.

In the end, we would just like to say that we couldn’t have celebrated the New Year in a better way… Happy New Year!

Lord Buddha said…

“Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others“

This New Year’s we truly realized it….

~Pune Chapter

18^th Dec, 2005

Blind School, Koregaon Park

~Pankhudi Pune had a wonderful opportunity to visit “Pune blind school”. Shahzad, Priyanka and Shaunak went there and spent some quality time with the children.

As the kids were having their lunch when we arrived, we went to the play ground and talked to the kids playing there. After that we went to the dormitory of the 10th standard children and met some really bright children; Basamraj , Shivaji and Vikas to name a few.

Shivaji impressed us with his good command on English language, while Vikas went on and on cracking jokes. We had fun talking with them, pulling each others leg, cracking stupid PJ’s.

We also met an ex student, Kuldeep who is now in a college and takes music classes here on weekends. Kuldeep has a long list of things on his resume starting from BA in Music to performing in an orchestra! Talking to him gave us a lot of insight into the problems faced by the visually challenged. He shared the challenges he faced when he went out of this school and into college. He sang “Allah ke Bande” for us and promised to sing more songs the next time.

They have a computer lab which is in a pathetic condition with some PCs from the 486 days. Shahzad and Shaunak will visit the school in a day or two and check the computers and see if we can do something regarding the same.

One thing we noticed is that some of them are shy to talk in English and when asked them the reason. They said,”What if we say something wrong and funny.??” That’s one thing we need to help them with, not just English but overall communication skills.

We had a great time there and hope you guys will also try and come there someday and experience that unexplainable feeling of content and happiness that we felt after spending some time with them….

As they say… True joy cannot be described, it can only be experienced!

~Pune Chapte