PROLOGUE

Marked with firework displays and family feasts, Diwali, is a five-day festival celebrated by millions of people across the world every Autumn. The festival is observed by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains. It spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, knowledge over ignorance, and hope over despair.

What better way to celebrate it than to give hope to a group of kids, to whom life has been unfair.

That’s why Rotaract Midtown decided to visit Shakthi Illam, an Orphanage in Ratamalana, primarily consisting of Hindu Orphans, to celebrate the essence of Diwali with the kids.

This time it was chaired by our community service director himself Rtr. Insaf. This project was part of our series of community service projects focusing on all religions and cultural blends in Sri Lanka.

We tend to do things very diversely, and we include bit of personal cultural development as well. How may you ask?

Well we pick a person to chair the project, who is not associated with the culture and the holiday so that each time they get to learn something new during the process of organizing as well and then throw in a bunch of people from different races and religions into the mix, so everyone gets to be a part of it.

THE DAYS BEFORE

It was a real back and forth on picking which orphanage to visit during Diwali as there were many in and around Colombo and we could only visit one.

It was a discussion that went on for over 4 meetings and finally we settled on Shakthi Illam in Rathmalana.

This was going to be our first community service project for the quarter, and the quarter ends on the day of the project.

Insaf and Ashfaque brought the best sweets, and kudos for selecting sweets that are literally from the Diwali menu, the more tasty description of the food is mentioned further below.

Also they had bought stationary items for the kids, including a pencil boxes, colors crayons and pencils.

Malshani (our president) and I visited a hidden away super market in Dehiwala to buy canned Ice Coffee (I swear that’s a real thing). We bought about ten cans, and that super market was awesome!!!

Malshani was like “What is this place?”

It had really cheap stuff, and very un orthodox items, like instant coffee with the cup, and Large Pepsi cans for 150 (dust included). But we couldn’t stay back for long as we had jiffy off to King Spin. FYI we won King’s Spin (yeah we’re rubbing it in). What is King’s Spin you may wonder? It was a bowling tournament organized by the Rotaract Club of the Faculty of Management and Science. But that’s for another post.

 

ON THAT DAY

THE FOOD

I’m not sure if’s call Jalabi but that’s a panni valalu that melts in your mouth and simultaneously melts your heart, because it is out of this world. there is also a Kalu Dodol, Sponge Cake and Muruku. I’m pretty sure the muruku was the only spicy thing on the menu

Half way through the organizing I started to fear that we might run out of food, but in the end it was pretty good, everyone got a plate including the Skathi Illam staff with six packs to spare, well spare is a the wrong word, we ate the left overs. Waste not right?

The sponge cake is from Royal Bakery, we never put that on the plate, cause nobody likes sponge cake, no body, that’s why we gave it to them to serve at tea, at least a hot cup of Lipton to save them.

(editor’s note [AGAIN]. There are some people who do like a piece of sponge cake. Maybe with ice cream? But this is Miyuru’s post. I just like adding my two cent’s in 😀 )

THE KIDS

Utterly awesome kids, I like the type of kids who make lemonade when life gives them lemons, some of those kids are really forward going kids, especially the girls who were uncharacteristically socially forward, at first they were quite timid but then they warmed up to Rtr. Zaid, and Zaid too lost his initial shyness, we had to give him a small pep talk, and pretty soon we had to switch from encouraging them to talk and to keeping them quite, talk about a tough crowd huh?

Zaid took the opportunity to inspire the get kids about achieving their dreams, as he had, being a successful pilot I think that was just an awesome thing to do.

But they are so good and really warmed up to the midtowners, here is a few photos from that day.

   

 

TALENT SHOW

I came in a bit late but that was really awesome, saw two kids break dancing to a Tamil song and there seems pretty good, there is also this girl who sang her heart out, she got 3rd place at the Art Competition too. These kids were really talented and were not afraid of displaying it either. Which we all enjoyed immensly of course. They were really good.

DRAWING CONTEST

It is so lovely to see kids put their hearts on the paper, there is no words to describe so here are some photos

PAPER DRESS CONTEST

On my way to the event Insaf asked me to buy old newspaper, and there is lesson to be learnt here don’t go the event with empty pockets, fortunately they found some. Why newspaper? Well it’s good to keep up with current events, ha ha no! it was for the paper based dress contest.

Mal (Malshani if you had not still figured it out) asked me to pile up the papers into 8 pile, then 9, and they got mixed up. We finally manged to put the piles up, with the help of Jazeel who showed up for a project after a short leave of absence. He did come in time to help us with the food.

Finally the result of all that counting and piling, ended up in a spectacular show by the kids who turned them into clothes.

DRY RATIONS

Nipun had brought dry rations perhaps a long term contribution for the kids.

 

ROTARIANS

It was so nice to see the involvement of Rotarians from our family, including the Rotary President of Midtown Rtn. Hussain Fazleabas. Especially as Sunday is everyone’s chill out day. But they took time off to visit the orphanage and share this celebration with the kids and with us. They were present from the morning get go, might have made the morning a bit more nervous than usual, but they were really happy to be there, so were we.

We would like to shout out a special thanks to Rotary Midtown for helping us with sponsoring for the project as well. I think they enjoy being there as much as we did having them there with us. I’m definitely in for more projects with the Rotary.

EPILOGUE

PRESENCE OVER PRESENTS

It was a good day spent with the kids, which is something that normally does not happen to them, even though they seem to be getting frequent donations. What these children also need is people who can interact and spend quality time with them. I think our presence, had a very moving and powerful effect on the kids.

On the way out, Insaf saw one last look at the kids at Shakti Illam as he saw a sad look on their faces. This was a hard reality that no matter how much fun we had with them, it’ll never be enough. But that won’t keep us from trying because to put a smile on their faces even for however short of a while is important.

We also would like to thank Insaf, our board community service director. Insaf is a kick ass project chair. He learns, he cooperates and he’s quick witted, and just like Rtr. Shakeel before him who also started to love community service after his first project, Insaf’s starting to love the service. And our thanks and love to all our Midtowners who showed up and gave their heart and soul into this and to those who supported us even though they were unable to make it.

I think we learnt valuable lessons from today’s event. it’s the first project under Mal’s year where the team really pull through and got things rolling, especially given that there were a lot of hurdles to overcome to get this going.

Diwali was the perfect season to learn these lessons and to share them with each other, the kids and with you, reading this post.

Happy Diwali folks.

Written by: Miyuru

Edited by: Roshanthi