Our excitement about it being our first day and the prospect
of spending time with the girls and getting to know them, made the car journey
to the Institute feel much longer than it would have been otherwise. The
activity we had planned was centred on having the girls draw their favourite
animal and write an accompanying story. On arrival, we were welcomed by the
team and discussed our aims of working with the Veerni girls, which include
building the girls’ confidence when it comes to speaking English and achieving
a firm basis in terms of vocabulary.
Lunch with the girls was great as we were able to see the
way they interact and chat with each other, reminding us of meal times we use
to have at school. We were impressed by the dining hall, with its lovely orange
table-cloths and large round tables, similar to that of a hotel!
Having gathered the 16 girls we would be working with, we
introduced ourselves, including fun facts to help create the sense of a fun
environment. Throughout the afternoon, Vimlesh was amazing as a translator,
relaying to the girls the task and also providing us with key information, like
how some of girls had only been at the Institute for two weeks and were
therefore shy, meaning they would need some extra help.
We were delighted by the drawings produced, which displayed
the wonderful creativity of lots of the girls and put our own drawings to
shame. There were a great deal of elephants and peacocks present but
representations of these animals varied and a beautiful butterfly helped break
up the collection. We all sat around in a circle on the floor and each girl
presented their picture and story with Vimlesh translating each to us. Picking
three winners was going to be harder than we thought and the temptation to
reward all of them was strong.
Prizes would be given on Monday and the plan to run a
fashion show was met with excitement. We ourselves looked forward to getting
involved and walking the runway!
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