{"id":4273,"date":"2026-05-26T09:04:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T03:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neependra.net\/?p=4273"},"modified":"2026-05-26T09:08:56","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T03:38:56","slug":"sowing-seeds-notes-from-running-a-village-summer-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neependra.net\/index.php\/2026\/05\/26\/sowing-seeds-notes-from-running-a-village-summer-camp\/","title":{"rendered":"Sowing Seeds \u2014 Notes from Running a Village Summer Camp"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>After visiting Jeevika Ashram, Jabalpur alone in Nov &#8217;25<a href=\"https:\/\/neependra.net\/index.php\/2026\/04\/08\/notes-from-the-edge-of-the-mainstream\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u00a0for the Nature, Culture &amp; Economy course<\/a>\u00a0and with family in Jan &#8217;26 for the Ashram&#8217;s annual Basant Utsav program, I wanted to visit in the summer again, combining it with our visit to my hometown. The earlier thought was just to visit and stay at the Jeevika Aashram to explore the village life further. Then the thought came: why not organize a summer camp for kids? That way kids would be engaged, and I could also practice my learnings from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/neependra.net\/index.php\/2026\/04\/10\/be-like-water-lessons-from-a-diploma-in-experiential-education\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">DEEP (Diploma in Experiential Education &amp; Practice)<\/a>. I ran through this idea with Ashish Ji (Founder of Jeevika Ashram), and he readily agreed. We named it &#8220;<strong>\u092e\u093f\u091f\u094d\u091f\u0940 \u0915\u0940 \u092e\u0939\u0915 (Scent of the Soil)<\/strong>,&#8221; and this is how it all got started.\u00a0<br><br>Organizing a residential camp for kids was new for both of us, but with other experiences we had, it did not seem difficult either. We started finalizing activities, posters, etc. Somewhere in-between we thought, why not include the village kids for the camp, and we can offer it to them at no cost, as we&#8217;ll not have to arrange about their stay? This idea made us very excited, and at least I started imagining the interactions of village and urban kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fast forward: we had 18 children from cities like Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Jabalpur, and Katni and 30+ children from nearby villages. The camp duration was 10 days, 8th &#8211; 17th May &#8217;26. Each day was divided into 3 parts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>5:30 AM &#8211; 7:00 AM &#8211; Activities like forest\/river walks for residential kids<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>9:00 AM &#8211; 12:00 PM &#8211; Activities like pottery, cooking, gobar art, charka, and painting for all<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>4 PM &#8211; 7:30 PM &#8211; Collaborative games, Indian games, prayer &amp; discussions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Each day was different, and we all had a lot of fun. Following is the detailed report on theme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-interactive=\"core\/file\" class=\"wp-block-file\"><object data-wp-bind--hidden=\"!state.hasPdfPreview\" hidden class=\"wp-block-file__embed\" data=\"https:\/\/neependra.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/\u092e\u093f\u091f\u094d\u091f\u0940-\u0915\u0940-\u092e\u0939\u0915-\u0936\u093f\u0935\u093f\u0930-\u0930\u093f\u092a\u094b\u0930\u094d\u091f-2026.pdf\" type=\"application\/pdf\" style=\"width:100%;height:600px\" aria-label=\"Embed of \u092e\u093f\u091f\u094d\u091f\u0940 \u0915\u0940 \u092e\u0939\u0915 - \u0936\u093f\u0935\u093f\u0930 \u0930\u093f\u092a\u094b\u0930\u094d\u091f 2026.\"><\/object><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-3299a632-4b06-4283-88ee-e80c5eebf2cc\" href=\"https:\/\/neependra.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/\u092e\u093f\u091f\u094d\u091f\u0940-\u0915\u0940-\u092e\u0939\u0915-\u0936\u093f\u0935\u093f\u0930-\u0930\u093f\u092a\u094b\u0930\u094d\u091f-2026.pdf\">\u092e\u093f\u091f\u094d\u091f\u0940 \u0915\u0940 \u092e\u0939\u0915 &#8211; \u0936\u093f\u0935\u093f\u0930 \u0930\u093f\u092a\u094b\u0930\u094d\u091f 2026<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/neependra.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/\u092e\u093f\u091f\u094d\u091f\u0940-\u0915\u0940-\u092e\u0939\u0915-\u0936\u093f\u0935\u093f\u0930-\u0930\u093f\u092a\u094b\u0930\u094d\u091f-2026.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-3299a632-4b06-4283-88ee-e80c5eebf2cc\">Download<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Following are some of the observations and learnings:-<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Unless we mention it specifically, collaborations while playing the games were missing from both urban and rural kids. They either worked in smaller groups while ignoring others or thought about doing it their own way.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Urban kids required more grounding. Specific instructions need to be given multiple times.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Initially there were only a few kids who would climb the trees, but towards the end of the camp, a lot of kids started to climb them. One of the village parents said that he was so happy to see his child on the tree. Kids these days don&#8217;t climb trees.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Indrana village, where we did our camp, has lots of potters, but most of the village kids got exposed to pottery for the first time, and they loved it. Not sure if we have to be happy about it or sad about it!!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Physical strength of village kids is greater.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>At a personal level, even after knowing in advance I was going to lose my cool sometimes\u2014I did. This is not good, but I&#8217;m happy that I could see what&#8217;s coming. Hope to get better at adding pauses before reacting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is very difficult to answer the question when people ask, <strong>&#8220;What will you gain by doing such camps?&#8221;<\/strong> For now I simply answer that I am doing so that my kids can participate; the rest is all secondary. This makes them cool down; we move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was our first attempt to run such a camp. Though we knew that such camps are required for the current generation of kids, after doing it once, we could see the impact it can bring not just to the kids but to the organizers as well. Apart from some immediate fun, laughter, and good times, I am sure a seed of community\/collaboration and a simpler life is sown. If we get lucky, we may be able to rest under the tree, which would come out from seed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After visiting Jeevika Ashram, Jabalpur alone in Nov &#8217;25\u00a0for the Nature, Culture &amp; Economy course\u00a0and with family in Jan &#8217;26 for the Ashram&#8217;s annual Basant Utsav program, I wanted to visit in the summer again, combining it with our visit to my hometown. The earlier thought was just to visit and stay at the Jeevika &#8230; <a title=\"Sowing Seeds \u2014 Notes from Running a Village Summer Camp\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/neependra.net\/index.php\/2026\/05\/26\/sowing-seeds-notes-from-running-a-village-summer-camp\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Sowing Seeds \u2014 Notes from Running a Village Summer Camp\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,184,196,190],"tags":[198,183,199,106,197,179],"class_list":["post-4273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-facilitation","category-jabalpur","category-parenting","tag-comm","tag-community","tag-kids","tag-life","tag-summer-camp","tag-village-life"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/neependra.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-05-17-at-9.25.02-PM-1-scaled.jpeg?fit=2560%2C1920&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neependra.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neependra.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neependra.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neependra.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neependra.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4273"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/neependra.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4279,"href":"https:\/\/neependra.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4273\/revisions\/4279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neependra.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neependra.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neependra.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neependra.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}