Putting the smile back on their faces

By C. Maya

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, APRIL 18. With the season of `summer camps' here, for a section of children belonging to the slum colonies in the city, for whom such camps mean nothing due to social and economic reasons, the annual camp organised by the Don Bosco Veedu is proving to be a great leveller.

This year's summer camp, which began at the Veedu premises in East Fort today, has 120-odd children in the age group of nine to 14 years, from the neighbouring slum colonies - Karimadom, Shingarathoppu - as participants.

This is the fifth consecutive year that the Don Bosco Veedu is organising the camp and the response from the children and their parents has been very heartening, says Fr. Philip, director, Don Bosco.

He points out that they are very conscious that their socio- economic profile is quite different from that of the other children and hence are reluctant to attend camps organised in the city. There might also be financial constraints on the family.

"They are all school-going children, but many come from families where either the father is a habitual offender or an alcoholic or the parents are unfaithful to each other," Fr. Philip says.

Exposed to the various aspects of slum life, the chances of these children idling away their time and getting involved in anti-social activities are quite high, he says. The summer camp organised by Don Bosco is thus an event much looked forward to by both parents and children.

The focus of the camp will be on personality development, health and hygiene. This apart, children will also be given coaching in English, school curriculum-based activities, lessons in painting and music, and to wrap up, they will be taken on a day's picnic.

"Normally, the camp is attended only by children from slum colonies. But this year, to bring down that social barrier, we had solicited the children in our neighbourhood also to take part," said Fr. Philip.

The summer camp is an extension of the slum development activities of Don Bosco, which firmly believes that prevention is better than cure. Concentrating on Karimadom Colony in Manacaud, which has over 1,000 families, Don Bosco has been organising special tuition classes for school-going children for many years.

With illiteracy, unemployment and alcoholism still dogging the colony, Don Bosco's approach has been to encourage the women to ensure that nothing affects the education of their children. It is important to prevent children dropping out from schools because this was often the first step in their taking to the streets and later on, criminal activities.

Tuition classes are held on all working days throughout the academic year - about 140 children are attending these classes. Don Bosco's volunteers also follow up with the families and offer assistance whenever necessary, so that children cannot offer silly reasons - like lack of a textbook or pen - to bunk classes.

Attention is also given to spreading awareness on health and hygiene among the women in the colony. Medical camps and health programmes are held. Adult literacy classes for women are held in the evenings even though attendance is not regular.

"We also interact with the women and families on a regular basis and offer counselling wherever required - the social transformation here in the past few years has been dramatic. The school drop-out rate has also come down drastically," said Fr. Philip.

The camp was kicked off today on a colourful note, with the children putting up many cultural programmes. Mr. Murali, actor, who addressed them, had a very poignant message for them - that they should concentrate on grooming themselves as good persons first: money, status and fame would follow.

A session in progress at the Don Bosco Veedu in the city on Wednesday. Photo by S. Gopakumar.

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