English Phonetics and Urdu

So far I have been teaching the children English phonetics and Urdu. The purpose of teaching phonetics is to help the senior and junior children to recognise sound patterns that are common in English - and also to demonstrate how English words are not written in a phonetic manner. The children are well receptive idea and are slowly understanding that English words are not always spelt the way they are written.

In addition to this I have purchased some Urdu exercise books from Delhi's Meena Bazar (next to Jama Masjid - the main Mosque of the city), and have begun Urdu lessons with the senior boys. I felt it was important for me to continue to teach Urdu to the children as I had started this on my previous visit.

Unlike Hindi, Urdu is not always phonetic. There are different forms for each letter depending on their positioning in a word and also the previous letter in the word. Also, some vowels are not written unless they appear at the start of the word, and use a symbol also used for 2 other vowels.

In their third Urdu lesson so far today, I conducted a test for them to see how much they had memorised. The test involved writing Urdu words in Hindi and Hindi words in Urdu to test their comprehension so far. I am impressed with their progress so far, yet some basic errors need to be addressed - Raju keeps forgetting that Urdu is written from right to left and is therefore writing words backwards, Kailash is also forgetting how many dots are needed for certain letters - the incorrect number of dots and incorrect placement could mean a whole new letter - and a completely different word!

I am feeling satisfied at their progress so far and I am looking forward to teaching them more and correcting their mistakes. It is great to back with the children, teaching them and spending time with them.

Lal Qila

On my last trip to Delhi I never got a chance to visit Lal Qila. Although the kids have been many times before, the senior boys were more than happy to accompany me on

this visit!

Sentiments

After I arrived at Parichay again, Vijay asked the children to write a few short lines about how the felt about my re-arrival. Yaseen's in particular touched me, and I've attached his words here.



After meeting John Brother it seemed that our life had returned back to our body.
Our heart started to beat again.
Blood started to enter our bodies.
Brother had went from Parichay and so it was seeming that our lives were running away, that our heart had stopped beating. 
Our blood had stopped pumping.
So I just want that Brother will stay only with us, but I know that he will have to return back home since his family lives there. But Brother I want so say just one thing - when you go, try to come back as quick as you can.
Your younger Brother, Yaseen



जॉन भैया से मिल कर ऐसा लगा की हमारी जान हमारे शरीर में वापास आ गयी है
हमारी धड़कन फिर से चलने लगी है 
हमारे शरीर में खून दोबारा से दोड़ने लगा है
भैया परिचय से गए थे, तो लग रहा था कि हमारी जान जा रही है, धड़कन बंद हो रही है 
खून चलना बंद हो रहा है
मैं तो चाहता हूँ कि भैया हमारे साथ ही रहे परन्तु मुझे पता है कि भैया को वापस जाना तो होगा ही क्योंकि वहाँ पर उनका परिवार रहता है पर भैया मैं एक बात कहता हूँ कि जब आप जाओ तो जल्द से जल्द लौटने की कोशिश करना 
आपका छोटा भाई, यासीन 

Donations

Aside from selling cupcakes, I decided to approach a number of retail organisations in preparation for my trip to India, in order to see if they could help in any way  While most of the major retailers already noted existing commitments and were unable to help, a wonderful online retailer that specializes in wooden toys (Wooden Toy Shop www.woodentoyshop.co.uk) kindly donated a £40 voucher to purchase some items for Parichay.



After liaising with Vijay, we decided that the following items would be useful for the children:

Melissa and Doug’s First Bead Maze
BigJigs Ball and Cup
BigJigs Jacobs Ladder
Wooden Lacing Shoe
Melissa and Doug Shape Sorting Cube

Both myself and Vijay were extremely impressed with the quality of the toys, they are both sturdy and built to last. I would like to thank Wooden Toy Shop for it's generous contribution that will help with improving the various skills for the children at Parichay. To view Wooden Toy Shop's range, visit their website at www.woodentoyshop.co.uk.




Another wonderful retailer that I would like to extend my thanks to is Kid's IQ Books. Imagine my surprise when I received a three packages worth of books after requesting support from them! The range included some kid's classics for the older kids and some some maths learning books among a variety of other titles. I was touched by the generosity of Kid's IQ Books and the variety that they sent to me for Parichay will most definitely cover a wide range of skill sets. See Kid's IQ Books' range of titles at www.kidsiqbooks.com.





I am also very grateful to the National Literacy Trust for the wide range of books they donated to Parichay. Considering they are also a charitable organisation, I astounded at the amount of books and stationary items donated by them, covering a wide range of topics - such as books on Poland and it's culture, Gujarati folk stories in English and Hindi, and other useful books.





 In addition to this I also obtained a £20 voucher from Tesco, with which I used to purchase a variety of stationary items. Along with the items purchased and brought by me and the money obtained via my cupcake fundraising, Parichay will remain well stocked for a long while!

I would also like to thank my mother for paying for my third suitcase so that I was able to take all of these wonderful items to Parichay.

Holi

How lucky was I, to celebrate Holi for the first time in my life, twice! Two days ago I celebrated Holi with my friends, and after visiting the project yesterday, we decided that it would be good to celebrate Holi with the children also.

All of the senior boys plus Rumi and 

Deepika came for a class with volunteer Puneeta at Parichay, and after we had great fun playing Holi on the roof. Given my previous experience, I applied plenty of coconut oil before playing to avoid any further staining to my skin!

Surprise!

I am back in Delhi! There was much more I wanted to see in India so I decided to come back on a long trip and spend more time in Parichay also. Apart from Vijay, no one in the project was aware of my plan to come, so I decided to film the reaction of the senior children.

The shock of my arrival brought Moni to tears, and the children were very much pleased to see me. In addition to purchasing some stationary items in London for the project and some sweets for the children, 2/3 of my luggage was taken up in donated items only. Since the senior children had come to the project especially for this surprise, I will meet the younger children later next week for them to see these items.

The senior children enjoyed the sweets and browsed over the piles of books and Raju was particularly pleased with the t-shirts my Mother had sent for him.

Cupcakes!

After 11 hours of baking the day before, yesterday I set up a small cupcake stall at General Dynamics Information Technology's London call centre.

All packed and ready to leave

I started off the day with around 150 cupcakes boxed up to take with me to central London, but before travelling to General Dynamics I visited a nearby family relative who purchased £9 worth of cupcakes. After this, I travelled there via tube/metro. Once arriving, I set up my stall in time for day time staffs' lunch breaks and continued selling until late evening (around 9pm) for the night time workers.

There were 6 types of vegan cupcakes available:- Almond & Cardamom, Almond, Coconut, Chocolate, Vanilla and Coffee with Cinnamon Crumble Topping. I also spent the day prior to baking making bath bombs/fizzers to sell. I used almond oil to result in a silky smooth feel and made 4 flavours:- Jasmine, Rose, Fruit and Mixed Flowers.


I am pleased to say that the total I raised for Parichay yesterday comes to a total of £80 (approx 6600 Indian Rupees) . This money will go a long way towards Parichay achieving it's goals and will keep the project running smoothly - especially with the plan to expand the project site so all activities can take place at one site.







I was touched by the particular generosity of some staff members. Since I had advertised the stall a few days before, some staff members were kind enough to provide donations for Parichay despite these staff members knowing they would not be on shift the day of the sale.


There was also one particular staff member who purchased £2.50 worth of cupcakes, but generously gave £10! Staff at the company thoroughly enjoyed the cupcakes with the chocolate and coconut varieties proving to be the most popular.

I would like to extend my thanks to General Dynamics Information Technology for allowing me to sell cupcakes at their contact centre.