|
|
A little affection and some fun and games go a long way toward improving the life of a child, Emanuele Sozzi, an analyst with Accenture’s Financial Services team, learned during a recent trip to India.
Emanuele spent three weeks during August in southern India’s Mundgod region.
|
|
|
His mission, sponsored by an Italian volunteer association, Ibo Italia, and the Loyola Viskas Kendra organization in Mundgod was simple: play with the children to enhance their learning abilities and improve their English language skills. Through a variety of memorization and role playing games, Emanuele believes he helped improve the cognitive skills of many of the children he encountered.
A vertical-style checkers game called Connect 4 was the most popular game with the children, who ranged in age from eight to 15. The game can enhance the children’s strategic planning and memorization skills, Emanuele said. Another popular game called Memory required the children to remember the names of animals listed in English on flash cards. Other games, like Capture the Flag, were played just for fun.
Some of the children Emanuele encountered were either orphans or children who do not see their parents for much of the year because the parents work far from home. He said there are many children in the Mundgod region who cannot go to school due to the great traveling distance involved, or their parents work as farmers and do not have the time to take them to school. These children can attend school if their families pay a modest boarding charge, which funds their food and pays the lodging of the teachers who spend the night with the children, Emanuel explained. The mission’s main goal is to build and maintain orphanages near the schools to give more children the opportunity to get an education.
|
|
|
Play stimulates learning
Emanuele, who is based in Accenture’s Milan location, said the children’s health is threatened by poor hygienic conditions and that they lack enough food for a nutritious and balanced diet. Without a proper daily vitamin intake, a child’s brain may not develop at the normal pace, Emanuele said, but he believes the external stimuli he provided by playing the games enhanced the children’s learning functions.
“I noticed that by the end of the experience, the children acted very fond of me,” Emanuele said, noting that the children surprised him by cleaning his dirty shoes. “These children need vitamins for the brain. This is why I recommend to other young people who travel to India to bring games, ideas and affection to these children.”
Emanuele said seeing the sadness in the children’s eyes when he departed was bittersweet, but the fun experiences and new friendships he gained made the trip well worth it.
“I especially liked the time during dinner each night discussing things with the priest at the mission,” Emanuele said. “He was very hospitable and demonstrated that my presence there was important.”
Emanuele gave the games to the children to keep, saying he hopes to repeat the experience in India or another underdeveloped region in the future.
|
|
|
|
|
