All School Medical Camp – Aug 16
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In this academic year, we decided to have the medical camps for the kids in the early part of the rainy season, wherein kids are becoming more susceptible to cold and fever. There was another challenge in front of us this time. We had included Barafpada as 11th at the start of the academic year, which took the total count close to 700. At the same time, most of our schools had classes up to 4th standard. Government has made a rule to have classes at least till 5th standard, which means we could retain more guys this year. The total count for this year is 742 at this time. We have been managing around 300 kids a day so far, wherein the camps stretch for 9 hours or so. Moreover, we used to conduct the camps on two consecutive Saturdays so far. With 743 kids to manage, even two Saturdays would not have been possible. Hence, we decided to add more hours on the camp day, which was possible only in the morning hours. There is no electricity in the school in the evening. Hence, stretching till late during rains in the evening was next to impossible. Hence, it was decided that on one of the days, we would have camp starting at 8:30 Am instead of 10:30 am. Since the doctors and volunteers stay in Mumbai, it was quite impractical to start from Mumbai at 6, manage the traffic and potholes and cover 110 kms to start the camp at 8:30 AM. To overcome the above mentioned obstacles, Suhrid foundation team decided to have the camp on two consecutive days and the arrangement for the overnight stay was done.
While we covered ourselves in terms of reaching to schools on 6th August, 2016 – the first day of the camp – there were issues with Janathepada and Toplepada schools to take the kids in tempo to the camp site due to water logging etc. Team Suhrid managed Bahirampada (77 kids) and Khandeghar (51 Kids) at Bahirampada in the first half, which was followed by Guravpada (95 kids) at Guravpada. Since there was no rains on that day, we decided to visit Janathepada to conduct the camp at their site. The camp on Day 2 were far more smoother (we had to manage 439 kids in one day, which was a record) since the camp started at 8:30 AM at Kaspada and the teachers managed the kids and transportation very well. We would complete the camp at Toplepada in Aug or sept.
Suhrid foundation team was put up at a hotel/resort at Vikramgadh. At the end of day 1, we decided to invite the teachers with family to join us for dinner. It allowed the families to meet the foundation members, understand the objectives and share their experience in this light environment. While we always feel that we are successful only because of the full involvement of the teachers, they also expressed their gratitude. It was quite interesting to know that they have remodeled their lifestyle around the Suhrid foundation activities.