Care and Support 50 HIV+ Orphan Children in India

The harvest festival popularly known as Pongal in Tamilnadu is the festival that is celebrated in honouring the farmers. Being an agriculture dependent country, it is still, particularly in rural areas an important day for the people. Even in Buds of Christ, the care takers of the children with whom we work are dependent on agriculture as their major source of income.

The pongal day  was celebrated at Buds of Christ with the children, their siblings and the care takers. The occasion was used as a platform to strengthen the bonding among the children, care takers and their siblings. The Young people were dressed in their traditional outfits to mark the occasion. The children and the care takers had decorated the place with the traditional rangoli's and set the cooking place with mud pot decorated with sugar cane

A presentation on the lives of farmers and the meaning of pongal was shared at the meeting. Following that, the cooking of pongal was made in a traditional pot setting and group games for various age groups were conducted simultaneously. The best moment of the day was shouting "pongalo pongal" by children and care takers, marking the pongal is cooked.

The day ended with everybody eating sugar cane and the sweet pongal.

An orphan child shared “I enjoyed the Pongal celebrations very much and it was like my family occasion”

A care taker (grandmother of an orphan child) – “I have celebrated many pongal festival, but here at Buds meeting other children, being part of the cooking and decorations was an enjoyable process. I even felt much younger, when my team won the rope -pulling game”.