What better way to keep children occupied on a warm summer evening, during the vacations, than stories. That too stories through origami, or vice-versa. There was the story about Mr. Smiley who starts off as a colourful square sheet of paper, turns into a kite, an ice cream cone that's slowly eaten and then, voila — we have Mr. Smiley.
After every similar story, accompanied by a step of paper folding, the children proudly displayed their creation to Latha Subramaniam, storyteller and paper craft expert, who handled the session. This was preceded by drawing and painting competition.
These activities were the build up to the main event organised by YOCee — launch of its Chennai Kids Directory, at Bookz 'n' More, a library and activity centre at Adyar. The directory is a comprehensive listing of activities from archery to aero-modelling, language classes to tuitions, quizzing clubs to yoga centres, trekking to tuitions, all broken down area by area.
Priced at Rs. 30, the directory was inspired by the efforts of student reporters of YOCee which is “a kids' community website, created by children, for children of Chennai”. It's content is generated by enthusiastic and curious children who scout the city for the latest happenings. And thus the idea for the directory came about, explains Revathi R., Editor, >www.yocee.in
The directory was released by two young reporters of YOCee — Saniya Surana and Ishan Venkat, who have been with the website for the past four years. While Ishan hopes to get into a media-related field, Saniya has plans to study law.
The idea seemed to click with the children assembled that evening, as they were excited to see two children, only a little older than them, invited as “chief guests” who released the directory.
The directory is available at book stores. To order copies online, log on to: >http://yocee.in/
ISHAN VENKAT , XI, Bala Vidya Mandir: YOCee is a good platform for students like us. While out on work I came across the Ultimate Frisbee Championship. Early in the morning you can find a group of frisbee enthusiasts practising on the beach. Until then I never knew that frisbee was a serious sport and that championships were organised in the city. Coming out with the Chennai Kids Directory is useful for anyone who wants to find out about any activity in the city. Usually people would browse online or ask people, but the directory makes the search easier.
SANIYA SURANA , XII, PSBB: During my assignments for YOCee, the interesting things I came across were the toy lending library, Model UN and debating championships. When it comes to issues, we plug them with the issue-related events we cover. The Chennai Kids Directory is a great idea. When we were younger we did not have access to such information.
