Wishing you a Diwali that sparkles, soothes and is a continuous celebration of the spirit that brightens life. Let the lamp inside you glow at its brightest. Hoping that our news letter adds to cheer and festivities!
Sittilingi Run.
Yet another beautiful, happy and exhilarating Sittilingi Run took place, this time in April!
The event had runners from every age group. From Dr. Ravi’s father all the way down to many of our 3-year-olds who ran along with their parents!
The Run, which was initially scheduled for February, got postponed due to some tensions between two villages. But it ultimately went off very smoothly and harmoniously.
This was an occasion for all the teams from Thulir, the Tribal Hospital, SOFA, Porgai and Vanavil to get together, and they joined forces amazingly! This was our first time introducing prior registration and a token registration fee. The registration process was also decentralized and handled by volunteers from different villages. And it worked! Around 300 runners participated enthusiastically! This included around 50 runners from Thiruvannamalai, Chennai, Bangalore, Runner’s High, Ananya Trust, Rishi Foundation and Payir Trust.
Thanks to Santhosh and friends from Runner’s High and Sai Vishwanath Memorial Trust for supporting the Run in so many important ways!
Nature Walks
Though vinod was not coming for the nature walks this year, teachers are continuing the walks with the same passion and energy inspired by him.
Sightings on our Nature walks From Top Left to Right : Forest Morning glory, Indian Laburnum, Lantern fly, Crested serpent Eagle, Robber fly, Bush hopper.
Participation in the inclusive summer camp
Our students and teachers participated in an inclusive summer camp organized by SVMT Trust to provide children and teachers an opportunity to live and engage with children from varying marginalized backgrounds and varying physical and mental abilities. Living and engaging in structured experiential learning activities (outbound learning) helped mitigate the various misconceptions about neuron divergence and sensitized children to respect the varying abilities of other children.
The camp took place at the Spastic Society of Karnataka and the Pegasus campus.
A few glimpses from our daily craft classes
Art and craft with natural paints and flowers
Participation in Runs
Anandayana Run
Hyderabad Marathon
A special thank you to Balaji, who ran the Marathon to raise funds for Thulir!
A few glimpses of our academic classes.
The ever-growing Thulir community
One of the most heartening aspects of our work over the years has been having the most amazing people from all over the world visiting us, being moved by their time here and soon becoming a part of the Thulir community. The ever widening community of friends of Thulir gives us the strength and energy to carry on with our work and make a tangible difference here.
Mani from Runner’s High, who has been supporting Thulir for more than a decade, is now visiting and volunteering in Thulir for three days every week. We are also happy to welcome Sai Swetha and Souradeep, the newest members of the Thulir family.
Celebrations in Thulir
September 5th was a special day in Thulir. We celebrated 3 events in one day.
We feel it is imperative that children know, understand and respect all religions and not just their own. We invited Nouman from Porgai to talk to us about Milad-un-Nabi as well as Islam more broadly in the morning assembly. The children asked many questions, and through Nouman’ s answers all of us learnt a lot about Islam, the Prophet Mohammad, the Arabic language and script and the lunar calendar among other topics. It was a very informative session.
Friday was also Onam and the day of pu kolams or floral patterns in our neighboring state, Kerala. Observing, foraging and collecting flowers and proceeding to make creative designs with them is such a beautiful activity! At Thulir, adults as well as children love engaging in this, and it always unleashes their full creativity. Each class created their own colourful and original designs.
Teachers’ Day – In the afternoon, the 10 year old students told the teachers that they would teach the younger classes and the teachers could take a break! And they did! It was heartening to see how much of Thulir’ s pedagogical values have been imbibed by our students and how encouraging and empathetic they were when some student struggled, as well as how they combined practical activities with theoretical ones. The teachers were all equally delighted and proud!
Your contributions have been vital in propelling our work forward and we are deeply grateful for your unwavering commitment.
Thank you!