Cultural Events: On Parivaar’s annual calendar there are several days of cultural celebrations in which every member of the Parivaar community – from children and sevavratees participates. There are songs and dances, plays, speeches, readings and much more.
One important feature of Parivaar’s model is the participation of both teachers and children in all facets of extra-academic activities. Sports activities are engaged in regularly. During winter – locally, the cricket season – weekly matches are held between Parivaar and teams from local youth clubs. Occasionally, night matches under lights are conducted, complete with band and music, and the whole Parivaar community – comes out to cheer our team on. Kids at Parivaar also have access to a football (soccer) field, a volleyball court, and table tennis. Additionally, every year we hold our Track & Field Competition. It takes place over 7 days in the last week of December, and has about 120 different track and field events for children and staff.
Indoor games like Chess and Carrom are very popular among our children. Children’s movies and inspirational and educational films and sporting events are also shown regularly.
Our libraries have books for children in three languages – Bengali, English and Hindi. Newspapers in both English and Bengali come daily to both the boys and girls campuses where children are encouraged to read them.
Festivals: Celebrations during Durga Puja, Diwali, Holi,Christmas, Eid, Saraswati Puja, and birthdays of important national figures and freedom-fighters are observed every year, along with national festivals like Independence Day and Republic Day. On these occasions, talks and discussions are conducted in order to help the children understand the deeper meaning of these special days.
Excursions: As frequently as possible we take the children on excursions to places like book fair, museums, art galleries, exhibitions, libraries, theaters and planetarium, as well as to pandal viewing during the days of Durga Puja celebration.
Preparation for Competitive Examinations of Govt Services
We have initiated a new program which will open various avenues for the children for their future gainful employment. We had been engaging them in various vocational training after 12th grade onwards which has been job oriented and over 500 children had been absorbed in various private sectors.
Adding to those efforts, we are also exploring and working towards the space of employment in Government sector Most of the children at Parivaar come from tribal districts of West Bengal and are certified schedule tribe or schedule caste, thus they have considerable opportunities in the field of Government job.
The program started with all the 12th grade and onwards children who were interested in appearing for various competitive examinations. A priority area we have marked is that in Police and Defence forces.
We have engaged some experts in this field who took some sessions on the basic subjects initially and then conducted a test to understand their level and interest The classroom training sessions are held on Sundays (6 to 8 hours). Close supervision and Monitoring is done on an ongoing basis for the learning and preparation levels for these competitive examinations.
We have also engaged a group of people who specialize in Physical Training part for the Police and Defense Forces aspirants and they have scheduled their training sessions twice a week which amounts to 8 hours per week.
Once the children are examination-ready, they will start filling out recruitment applications as and when available We are hopeful to bring out significant number of successful children from this organized training programs very soon.
Employability Progams for Children
Quite a few of our children who have academic potential and aptitude enroll for university level education. While many others, after passing 12th board examination enroll in vocational skill development training courses from reputed organisations like Bandhan Skill Development Centre, Tech Mahindra Vocational Training Centre, George Telegraph, Ramakrishna Mission and others.
Bandhan Skill Development centres are offering course of hospitality management. This is a 3 to 4-month course where 7 of our girls are enrolled in 2024. They are trained to work in retail sectors, food chains, hotel industries etc. The training (36 hours a week) includes grooming, Spoken English, other communication skills and also industrial visits.
Several of the past trainees who have pursued the course got placements in some of the reputed hotels of the city as interns and after the competion of their internship, they got placed in hospitality sector in different parts of the country.
Another sought after course is that of 'Customer Relationship and Sales' conducted by Tech Mahindra. This course is conducted 5 days a week (5 hours a day in 2 halves) and is again 3 to 4 month course which includes grooming, aptitude, communication and also industrial visits. They offer guaranteed placements to all the trainees.
Some girls have taken training in nursing and paramedical service and are working with hospitals.
Similarly, in fields like electronics maintenance, beautician, interior decoration, and even small-scale entrepreneurship etc have been taken up and our past boys and girls gainfully engaged in this.