On April 6, 2014 – Khelshala celebrated their first initiative towards the United Nations International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. For an overview, we encourage you to visit the Khel-Mel event with the theme, “Play Life-Sports for a Healthy Life”.
All age groups were welcomed to the event to participate whole heartedly and take part in lifetime sports, such as dance, aerobics, yoga, athletics, squash, tennis, badminton and table-tennis, which were made available for the day. The Khelshala and Majra children joined hands to commence a day of great importance not only for the Khelshala community, but also for the sports society as a whole. The sound of the Dhols, kicked off the Khelshala march in which a group of very enthusiastic local community members arrived to participate in the walk towards the Khel-Mel venue.
Preceding the march, the dance activity conducted by Mr. Sameer Mahajan, Director of Rockstar Academy, lifted the spirits of the children and energized them for a day packed with fun activities. Along with explaining the importance of dance and aerobics in maintaining health and wellbeing of oneself, he began with a warm up before teaching the children chorography he had planned for the session. The dance session was followed by yoga and meditation conducted by Pinki Jha explaining how yoga and meditation can make their minds sharp, peaceful and also how it can enhance their day to day well being, if practiced regularly. In addition, various athletic activities including hurdles and cone drills for agility over a 50m track were conducted by coaches from Panjab University, Chandigarh. Also, many other individual games like squash, tennis, badminton, and table-tennis were a part of the overall day and were managed by friends and volunteers. Our very own Khelshala coach, Mr. Anil Rathee, also directed a tennis tournament. Khelshala children also performed a street play. This was greatly enjoyed by everybody, especially by the group of St. John’s School children in attendance. Khel-Mel activities ended with a grand finale of tug of war competition.
To conclude the proceedings a small prize giving ceremony was hosted by Mr. Bajwa, Founder and Trustee of Khelshala. He also shared with everyone on how sport can help them to stay fit and healthy. The event coverage was carried out by the esteemed Doordarshan channel, and Langar (community lunch) was served to all attending, courtesy of Village Majra Panchayat.
We were truly delighted to have celebrated this United Nations initiative and hope it served the vision and mission of spreading awareness among the community promoting development and peace. We look forward to a bigger and better event next year. We hope to see you in 2015.
Explorations in Sport for Development and Peace 