~Pankhudi's 3rd Collection Drive

15th June 2008; it was yet another ordinary day that Bangalore woke up to...but for ~Pankhudian's it was a day to be remembered, though it was just like any other day, but also had filled a lot of enthusiam in the Volunteers, for they were making a heading towards Sri-Lankan Refugee Camp/School (also known as Rajiv Gandhi International Academy - IGIA) at Yelahanka, Bangalore.

~Pankhudi Bangalore had initiated a collection drive, it's 3rd; for the children staying at the refugee camp and had collected clothes and other basic household stuff for the kids.
16 Volunteers from ~Pankhudi came together to take time out to spend time with children, the way a weekend of a ~Pankhudian is spent usually :), we reached at IGIA around 11 AM and quickly finished the sorting out of the clothes donated by various friendz, neighbors and like minded people.




Having sorted everything into proper respective groups, we had a joyous time playing around with the children, where else will one find heaven on earth.. it's gonna be definitely with children :). Some volunteers had a round of the school area where children actually study and which also serves as their sleeping room .. yes ironically the space serves both the purpose. Also maybe due to the fact there the girls have a separate quarters where they sleep. But still the camp has a lot of space of built a good infrastructure, but it's the funds that they are lacking.
Another revelation that came out this time (yeah, we already had had conducted another collection drive here, when we had stayed there for almost the whole day and also had watched some skits and dances and talent show being performed by the children, for it was
a kinda celebration day for these kids) was that these kids had never ever stepped out of the boundaries of the camp and are totally immune to the outside world, not because they are not allowed to, but because they were never taken out before.
Hope that they do get a chance to visit the outside world and thus have a clear picture of the outside world.

Having spent some time with them and playing and gossiping around, it was time to pack up for us and we did that with a promise that we'll be back at this place soon :)

(and yes, Thank God for making Yatin count the total head-count for the people who visited IGIA, at the last moment when the traveller was heading out of the gate, for if he would have had not.. in Mohan's words: we would have had donated just more than kind.... for we would have also left behind Nivedita (Pune Chapter), who's on a intern training in b'gore.. which was meant to; have had gone ahead and also donated a Volunteer ;)

**Thanks to all the people who donated the articles and made this drive a success as well as the volunteers for showing their unbeaten sporty attitude to dedicate their sunday with the kids to make our sunday not a missing sunday but... fun-sunday :)**

PS: I used to be a Volunteer with ~Pankhudi, and I hope I'll soon join a new venture to work with Children and pursue what I was doing with ~Pankhudi.