It’s a special time in the year - Christmas trees and baubles are already on sale and festive cake mixes are days away from the oven. Soaking in the spirit and sharing some of the joy is the Spastics Society of Karnataka (SSK) and its annual Winter Carnival that will be held on December 14 at its Indiranagar campus.
Here, from 11 am to 6 pm, games, music, food stalls and sale stands will beckon.
Organised by the staff, children and parents associated with SSK, this is, in many ways, the result of a greater family coming together. “While the process of building the carnival has been exciting and has given us the opportunity to network with each other, there are two major aims we are focusing on,” says
Priya Rao, associate director, adding, “Firstly, we want to raise awareness about our campus here in Indiranagar. We still come across people who are amazed with their discovery of the work we do and wonder how they hadn’t known of us earlier. So certainly we need to work towards greater visibility.
The second objective is inclusion. At the carnival, we have our children working with other children.
For instance, through our long-standing association with Mallya Aditi International School, students from the school spend time once a week with children at SSK.
Together they have collaborated on projects involving art, music, dance, photography and creative expression. An enclosure at the carnival will exhibit some of these.”
With voluntary student participation from mainstream schools and colleges along with those from special schools, performances of dance and music are scheduled too. Proceeds from all sales will go towards financing rural programmes run by the Society.
Since awareness is a primary objective, a stall on SSK will hopefully help inform those attending the carnival for the first time of its services.
This is the third edition of the carnival since it started on a small scale in 2009.
It skipped a year in 2012 when instead a Sports Day was organised.
The carnival will be held at Spastics Society of Karnataka, 31, 5th Cross off 5th Main, Indiranagar 1st Stage on Saturday.