“THE paintings created by the children made it look as though 100 rainbows had descended on the hall floor.”
More than 60 children from all over Sydney and surrounding areas attended the day camp to learn about their Hindu/Indian culture. The camp was organised by the youth wing of the VHP Australia. The participants were given a traditional Hindu welcome with kumkum and a VHP scarf.
Smt Akila Ramarathinam welcomed everyone and introduced Smt Gita Devi from VHP Melbourne branch who was in Sydney to observe the camp so that they can conduct a similar camp in Melbourne.
Clr Barbara Burton from the Baulkham Hills Shire Council was the chief guest at the camp.
The camp was aimed at promoting Hindu culture, traditions and their heritage to children, especially to those born in Australia. The parents/grand parents of these children came from India, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and Indonesia.
The children were taught sloka chanting, yoga, painting of pictures of Radha and Sri Krishna, from Hindu Epic Mahabharata, Sanskrit speaking and Indian outdoor games.
These were used as mediums to educate the children about the importance of good human values in life and also to stress the need for a good diet and exercise mixed with lot of fun.
The sloka teachers were Smt Jayanthi Narayanan and Smt Usha Thirumeni who are very experienced teachers and classical singers. Drawing and painting session was conducted by Shri Mahesh Narayanaswamy. He was assisted by Sowmya, Janaki, Madhura and Anirudh (Hindu Youth Wing members). The yoga and outdoor game sessions for the juniors were conducted by Vaishnavi assisted by Prashant and for the senior children by Shri Ramyavaran who was assisted by Kapilesh.
Shri Narayanan and Shri Rahul Vedi were the Sanskrit teachers.
All participants had a fantastic and enriching time. It was wonderful to see the youngsters’ creativity unfold and great to see the children learn the numerals 1 to 20 and days of the week in Sanskrit and Ganesha Pancharatnam in a single day.
The indoor and outdoor games were loved as well. The paintings created by the children made it look as though 100 rainbows had descended on the hall floor.
All enjoyed the delicious vegetarian lunch and of course the delectable dessert catered by Maya Da Dabha, Surry Hills, Sydney.
Clr Barbara Burton appreciated the camp and told the children that they were very lucky to be participating in activities like these and appreciated the work done by VHP Australia in promoting the Hindu culture to the Hindu Australian children. Clr Burton mentioned that currently there are only 47,000 people who speak Sanskrit in the whole world today and 60 more have now been added to that after this camp!
Website : www.vhp.org.au
