Over 2,000 children spent a fun-filled evening at the Raintree KidsZone at the Samba Square at the Garcia de Orta garden in the city over the weekend. The four-day educational fun festival carnival organized by the Nirmala Institute of Education, Goa, had 15 stalls, each with a different learning fun activity.
The activities included face-painting, nail art, brain gym, creating objects from waste, clay modeling, collaborative art, mask making and story-telling. The volunteers at the face painting stall were kept busy as children queued up and sat still for some time as their faces got painted. Anish, a Class 5 student, when asked what he liked best at the festival, said, “Snakes!” He showed off the green snake he had got painted on his forehead at the face-painting stall. Some of the inspiration for the snake theme came from the volunteers of Green Cross who had the children spell bound with their talk on snake awareness and their demo of live snakes. They showed kids the Rat snake, Sand Boa, Bespectacled Cobra are a few others.
Gazala, who with Vicelda, both students of NIE, was volunteering at the face painting shop, said some children liked getting the snakes painted on their hands instead of on the face.
Marlette, with Indrani, Meckline, Shweta and Raisa, all volunteers and students of NIE, were busy at the nail art stall. Children could choose to get their nails painted with motifs of ladybirds, animal prints and other bright splashes of paint. Some of the popular motifs were strawberries and Angry Birds!
Ashwini Advani, who sat watching her daughter draw at the drawing stall, said, “I am not going on to the other stalls. My daughter is happy here.” She said she was happy she was able to visit the event especially because the city has fewer opportunities for children to indulge in creative activities, unlike Mumbai, where events happen all the year through. The theme that was pervasive across all activities and presentations was Environment Conservation: ReDuce ReUse and ReCyle”. A fancy dress competition was organised for children where they were required to come dressed in costumes made entirely from waste material. The prize winners were Advait Mudras with his used cups party outfit and Rhea Saldahna as the Junk yard girl.