A Bal Mela was organised in Dharwad for migrant children from 4 localities on December 29, 2024. A team from Goa left for Dharwad on December 28 with most of the material required for the Bal Mela. The team consisted of Fr. Jose Sequeira, Fr. Richard Correia, Malvina Mendes, Trevor de Noronha and 10 boys to help with the stalls.
The Mela itself was set up in a Hall in Dharwad. The night before, the team cleaned and set up the hall. On D-day, the team got to the venue early and did the remaining preparations.
The children started arriving by about 9am. As soon as they arrived, they were given a nourishing breakfast. The children enjoyed it and were eager to see what was next. In all there were about 130 children from different communities and areas in Dharwad
Soon we were ready for the inauguration which was done by Fr. Jose and Fr. Richard along with some of the children. Soon after the inauguration, the children watched a few short videos on good behaviour followe by an interactive session to check their understanding.
As they came to then end of the video session, each child was give a sheet of coupons which they could use to play game in the different stalls. Initially, the children did not know what to do with the coupons and the language barrier made it a bit difficult to explain to them. However, once they understood the concept and how the games worked, they just ran around from stall to stall to try and win prizes.
Winning prizes was not difficult and ma ny of them were soon loaded with all kinds of prizes like colouring pencils, crayons, pencil boxes, soaps, biscjuits, juices and other goodies. Each game stall had long lines of children waiting to play the games. Besides this, we had an air-filled jumping castle and slide which had the children going haywire. We had to control the number of children who got on to the by asking them to stand in line.
After a long session of playing games and jumping around, it was time to break for lunch. The children reluctantly stopped after we said there would be a bit more fun and games after the break. A simple but sumptuous lunch was served, which they thoroughly enjoyed.
The post-lunch session saw the dhildren playing a few more games followed by some action songs. The children just loved the songs and the music and snthusiastically jhappy oined in. Then they were invited for an open dance session. A lot of children rushed to the stage and started dancing with glee! The dancing session went on for a good half hour. Once again, they were reluctant to stop. But we had to end the fun anf games as it was time for them to go home. The kids had a rollicking time and went back happy after an eventful day.
