Happy Birthday CYSD
on Jen's Indian Adventure (India), 25/Mar/2010 16:43, 34 days ago
March 24this CYSD’s birthday. Yesterday we were 28 years old. And boy, do we know how to throw a party. I have organised a few parties in my time, but not one that goes on from 10am until nearly midnight.Every year, the NGO I am currently working with celebrates it’s Foundation Day.The day started with the lighting of the celebratory candle, a key feature in all Indian celebrations. As it was not just a puja for CYSD staff, but their families also the morning followed on with dance competitions for the children, aloo and spoon race (not as interesting as our raw egg !) and a hotly contested cricket match on the front lawn. I was asked to present the children with their dance prizes and actually had predicted the winner- an up and coming young John Travolta, with his white head band and gold trousers. There was also a photo exhibition showing events and staff from the past 28 years and stalls full of freshly grown produce were being sold by people from the areas in which CYSD works– Koraput, Sundergarh and Keonijar.This was followed by a lovely lunch on the lawn enjoyed by everyone attending.The event of the afternoon was a lecture on‘Citizen’s Rights, Voters Education and Good Governance’, offered by Dr S.Y. Quarishi, the Election Commissioner of the Government of India. A very experienced, informed man, he made a very impressive speech on the area of Indian government for which he is responsible. This was followed by a response from Jagandanda, CYSD’s founder, but now the current state Information Commissioner (who later in the evening stepped on stage to lead a sing-song)Up to this point of the day I had been wearing my usual clothes, but had been advised that a sari should be worn for the evening events, so I duely obliged.After more food (though it was called a light snack, it was so much more) we all moved into the main auditorium where the main event of the evening was the recognition of long serving staff (20, 15, 10, 5 years service) as well as the 2 VSO volunteers. When I was called to the stage to receive my gift I held onto my sari for fear it would fall off– thankfully it didn’t.I was delighted to be presented with my gift and have a chat with Jagandanda, a man I have heard so much about but until last night had only said hello to on the bottom of the office stairs.In between each session we had a formal dance event performed by many of the children who had been in the morning competition to the now famous song‘Jai Ho’ (needless to say lead by Mr Travolta himself) as well as tribal dances performed by some of the staff from both the Koraput and Sundergarh field offices.The day finished by a lovely dinner served out on the lawn– at this stage there must have been 500 people there. And then this morning some of us were in for a full day manager's meeting.What a puja !Weather update- it hit 44 degrees celcius today. Yikes !