“I Want To Be the Strongest”

The photo on this post is badly lit, mis-composed, and has no technical merit whatsoever. But of all the images I’ve taken in the past 12 months: from Russia, Turkey, Paris, Provence, this one, from beautiful downtown Whampoa, is the one I’m proudest of.

The “study” theme at the Family Service Centre last Saturday was the Olympics. I brought in an Olympic torch from the office (yes, the real McCoy. Lenovo designed the Torch at the Beijing Olympics after all), had them play some Olympics-themed word games, got a TINY bit of reading done, and then the kids had a choice of making a torch, complete with paper napkin flames, Olympic Medal, or the Olympic flag.

It was a bit of pandemonium
– one of the boys kept running round to another table to give his younger sister a shove for no apparent reason; a bit of a mess – one kid spilled the water all over the table – no more poster paints please!! But the kids were into it, they were having fun, and the volunteers were great – getting the kids engaged, asking them questions and keeping them focused.

By late morning there were some nice torches and some kids doing Chariots of Fire with their handiwork. Some brought their art work home, some abandoned them. Several came up and asked that their work be put up on the wall.

So – that’s the photo in this post. Every Saturday we hope we give the kids two hours of a view into the world away from textbooks, hopefully get them interested in something new, and something to take home to their parents maybe.

One kid, Nashruddin wrote on his paper plate Olympic Medal “I want to be the strongest.” I hope his parents come in one weekend to see that.

And when Camelia (really cool teenage volunteer) and I blu-tac'd the stuff on the wall last weekend, I finally realised: baby steps are OK.