Pictures Taken By: Jennie Doezie
The week before I left India I helped put together one last performance for the Rising Star students. They all wore their special dance T-shirts and they all looked adorable. The show consisted of a couple of traditional dances in honor of Independence day along with a couple of numbers performed by the Life Dance Troupe. Along with these numbers I had all of the older students perform exercises that we had worked on in class over the summer. I chose a leader from each class to introduce the group. The student introducing the class also shared what they had learned over the summer in both Moral Science and Dance, which are the two classes that I taught over summer. It was wonderful hearing them share what they had learned in both classes and then watch them perform the exercises that enforced these concepts. Some of the concepts in which we focused on this summer in both the dance and moral science classes include:
Respect
Kindness
Leadership
Courage
Cleanliness
Dedication
Teamwork
Never giving up
I was so proud of all of the students and I know that they were proud of themselves too. After spending a summer trying to find decent speakers I finally found some good ones at a big shopping store called Landmark and with the help of Nyim, the Rising Star IT man, we were able to hook up not only the speakers but some microphones too. With the help of Steele and Maran chairs were set up for all of the Peery matriculation faculty along with all of the short term volunteers. The students all sat in their bright-colored T-shirts waiting in eager anticipation for their turn to perform.
The program went well and I was so proud of them. After the performance a kind man and friend by the name of Darmadan sponsored juice boxes for all of the students. It was a fun treat for all of the students to receive a small treat after the performance and a wonderful way for me to thank them for all of the hard work that they had put into their dance classes all summer.
As far as the touring educational show goes…I was able to make a lot of headway, however, the touring part of the show probably wont happen until the beginning of January. A large part of the grant has gone towards helping to sustain the program. I wish that I could have done more, but when I reflect on my summer I worked my butt off and I left the program with everything that I had. The touring show proved to be a much larger task than I had originally intended. The development of this show is going to take a lot more work on the home front with writing music and coming up with more dances that are cohesive for the students to perform. Now that I have the students stories the process of writing a show about their lives may be started. This process will take place with the help of a team of people who are sensitive to these students issues. This team will help weave these students stories together by incorporating special songs and dance together to tell a story about Rising above the social stigmas of leprosy. I am excited that I was able to help build the foundation for something that will be able to stand as a powerful reminder that we all can rise above our difficulties and become the Rising Stars that we are ment to be!
Thousands of Tiny Miracles 