By Bridget Horkan | Team Leader
To the question "How has this covid time been for you” 8th standard student Sri waque responds “With Covid 19, I am not going anywhere and I am using the phone. And I am missing my friends, I am missing old Sri waque, I am missing all of you” and to “What was your best moment in 2020-2021” he adds "Opening the new building was my best moment this year. Also doing the cycle trip and being involved in our pongal festival and all the arrangements. My proud moment was translating to the visitors and all of us singing songs in the new building on opening day.
He has more or less summed up our year at Thamarai learning centre with a joyful interlude between two lockdowns for the inaugurating of the first classroom of our new Learning centre and sports ground development, the celebration of Pongal which is the traditional harvest festival that acknowledges the abundance and sacredness of the earth and a weekend cycle trip for 30 children with the Botanic Gardens team.
In between, we have been busy reducing the isolation of this time and optimising on learning by keeping the children connected with youth facilitators on daily over the phone learning calls that cover a curriculum of Maths and English as well as emotional well being. We have also been involved in the distribution of food boxes worth a total 4.8 lakh/€5,432/$6,617 in partnership with Auroville Village Action Group to families in need. Families tell us that these interventions have really supported their well being at this critical time and support us in Thamarai to be in alignment with our core value of standing for full potential for everyone.
This week we launched our first online talent show which was a heartwarming, magic moment to see so many of our Thamarai family again and experience the wealth of natural talents and gifts we weave together through song, magic tricks, poetry, speeches, rubix and maths demos. It was such a happy moment to all be together again. 
We have also this week initiated a 10 session online leadership and well being program in Tamil through resource persons from RTLworks for people at community level to enhance their well being and counselling skills and develop their agency to be active at grassroots level promoting health and well being.
As the virus begins to subside now in India, we look forward to starting the development of the next two classrooms and hopefully having all the children and youth facilitators back in the centre again learning and growing together.
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