Playing on their NEW PLAYGROUND!!!!

It has finally happened.....

Last sunday the kids at KM played on their new playgrounds for the first time. The boys played in the pouring rain, which had absolutely zero effect on their fun! We had a surreal moment watching the children playing, realizing the project had finally come to fruition. Our playground opening party was complete with yoga, photography, samosas, and of course playing on the new playground! Before going on the playground each child received their own StarSeeds Shanti orange bracelet, they have been a real hit!

Since this project started nine months ago, there have been so many wonderful people that have helped along the way, it never would have happened without them. We would like to thank:

Starseeds Families for all their donations and support

Family & Friends of Trish, Kristin, Kendra, and Bax for all their contributions and moral support

To all those in India who helped:

Bhuvana and Shridhar at Vinyaas Playsystems

Anu and  Ganesh

Our contractor Pervez

Vinod and Bhavya for their translation help

Mahadev our landscape gardner

and last but not least Tracy Kunichika, founder of Operation Shanti. Her inspiring work in India has helped the special children at Operation Shanti and made this project possible.

We are also thrilled to announce the photo program will go on after we leave. The kids will be doing monthly photo classes and we will be working with them via skype. Their pictures will posted after each class on a blog for all to see!

Sadif signs the boys playground border

 Girls Yoga

 Practicing Yoga breath

 Girls play for the first time on their playground!

 

 Boys Yoga

 Boys first time on their playground!

To the kids at Operation Shanti whose spirit has touched us deeply. We are forever connected to you!

KM's Photo Program!!

All the pics below were taken by the children at Operation Shanti.

The photo program has been incredible so far. The kids immediate love of photography shows in their photos. We were amazed at how great some of the pictures were with only a few photo sessions!

Seeing what they have created so far, we are so excited to see how the photo program develops and what they will create in the future.

The last photo is of our StarSeed students wearing bracelets so kindly made by Dana and Josh Brewer (Ruthie's parents). They had the thoughtful idea of all the kids having something to remember this project by. The orange bracelets say StarSeeds and Shanti. Thank you. The kids love them and so do we.

Teaching kids how to take Hipstamatic Shots

    

StarSeeds wearing their bracelets

All has begun...

The construction of the playground has begun!!

Thanks to the hard work of some local construction workers and the monsoon gods sparing us, we are underway.

We filmed the KM kids answering the questions they had prepared from the previous week (name, age, and their favorite thing to play with at the playground). They also wanted to perform for the StarSeeds children just as they had for them. And what performances we had! They sang, had choreographed Bollywood dance routines complete with human pyramids, and had a wonderful rendition of the ABC's sung by Jeevan and Venki, 2 and 3 year old boys.

The photography program is becoming so much more amazing than we could have imagined. The kids have picked it up so quickly and have been taking endless pics (next blog we will post some of them). Most importantly, they are having so much fun and LOVE taking pictures. We have a hard time getting the cameras back from them at the end of the day, "one more, one more" is the anthem amongst the children.

Next week, the equipment arrives......

Preparing Lentils at KM

 Leveling

Girls Taking Pics

 Boys Taking Pics

First Sunday at KM

Last Sunday was fantastic!

We were so fortunate to have Vinod write out a translation so the children could understand what we were saying. Our new friend Bhavya helped with all of the translating in person that day. (not all the kids are fluent in English....yet!). Bhavya was a student at the Engineering University (congrats on the new job!) and volunteers her time every morning at Operation Shanti. After we thanked her for all she does and for helping us she said, "I am the lucky one that gets to be with them and do this". Wow.

We started off by showing the video that we made of our students at StarSeeds Preschool expressing their excitement about the playground project and introducing themselves. We wanted this project to be one that connected our students at StarSeeds in San Francisco with the kids at KM (Operation Shanti). Our vision was that, in the end, the playground could be one that everyone helped create.

They loved the video and were excited to learn about their "prize". We ended with the introduction to the photography program. Each child had their picture taken. Their favorite was seeing themselves after Bax took their picture.

We told them that, the following Sunday, they would be taking their own photos and helping us make a video. We would be filming them answering the same 3 questions that the StarSeeds were asked. This way, the StarSeeds students would have the opportunity to meet the children at KM they have heard so much about.

 Watching the video

 Watching the video

 Seeing pics of themselves

Bhavya with some of the girls