Sampriti – Ohana: family and heartfelt friendliness between two classrooms around the world from each other. We began at the start of the school year. Four organizations came together to provide a learning experience for children in classrooms across the world, including Namaste India Children’s Fund (www.NICFund.org), Seeds of Exchange (www.seedsofexchange.org), Vatsalya (www.vatsalya.org), and the Stanley British Primary School (www.stanleybps.org).
There were two groups of students: one from a middle school classroom in Colorado and one from a home for orphaned and abandoned children in India. The Colorado students named themselves Ohana – a Hawaiian word for family. The Indian children, all living at the children’s village called Udayan, founded by Vatsalya, decided upon Sampriti – which means heartfelt friendliness in Hindi.
The goal was simple – build a connection between the two groups and hopefully some learning would happen along the way. With the students and teachers from both groups, we developed modules for the exchange. The first was a Treasure Chest. Each school prepared pictures, collages, poems, stories to introduce themselves. It worked well as the director of Seeds of Exchange and I had a trip planned to India for October-November. We would take the Treasure Chest from Ohana and share it personally with the Sampriti kids. Then we would have the joy of bringing back the Sampriti Treasure Chest. What fun.
We had done a preparatory meeting with the kids in Colorado and, as part of that, had shared some typical Indian food. We had Chai and samosas and chutneys. We shared stories and pictures of the Sampriti kids so they would have some sense of who they would be sending their stories.
We arrived in India with our Treasure Chest bursting at the seams. We had decided to share a typical American snack with the Sampriti kids. We figured peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips and soda. This seemed fairly simple until we weren’t able to find any peanut butter! But we were able to find peanuts. So in the spirit of learning, we decided to make peanut butter. Let me tell you that it takes a whole lot more pounding than you might expect when you don’t have electrical appliances. But we ended up with a wonderful chunky peanut butter. None of the Sampriti kids had ever tasted peanut butter and they were highly suspicious but were quickly won over with everyone requesting more until the peanut butter was all gone.
We then shared the Treasure Chest that Ohana had sent. We went through the pictures and stories and explained unfamiliar things. Several of the Ohana kids had drawn pictures, or taken photos, of their Halloween costumes, so there was a lot of discussion about Halloween and then we had all of the Sampriti kids talk about what they would choose to dress up as. No surprise that Bollywood stars were a frequent choice! Before we left, we had a packed Treasure Chest from the incredible children in India for their new friends in Colorado. The start of a wonderfully successful exchange that we hope to continue over the years.
Delta Donohue
Namaste India Children’s Fund
For more information about how you can be involved in helping orphaned and abandoned children in India, please email Delta[at]NICFund.org.
Delta Donohue is the Voices of India Editor for Wandering Educators
All photos courtesy and copyright Seeds of Exchange