Founder of Yein Udaan, Vedika, spoke to one of her team members about it and the duo soon realised that children were yet to be mobilised during the pandemic. “We were thinking how to engage children to be part of COVID relief activities. We soon sorted out our dilemmas and launched an initiative called Project of Joy in mid-May. Here, children aged between 7 and 18 create gratitude cards and send them to healthcare workers in the city. With this small gesture, we have sought to make their dreary lives a bit cheerful. The best part of the project is that it is spearheaded by two high school students -- Amaira Goyal and Parthivi Mohunta. An art teacher from the city, Madhulika Nandhakumar also supports them,” Vedika said.

For the project, Madhulika came up with a visual thinking module enabling children to think differently about creating cards. “We didn’t want children to make cards with the constant theme of a hospital, doctors and nurses. We wanted to include all healthcare workers like support staff, cleaning staff, security, ambulance drivers and so on. We will expand the postcard project to Thirunelveli and Hyderabad,” she added.

Amaira Goyal, a Class 10 student at Sishya Adyar, has been following the various activities of Yein Udaan. “When this project was launched, I knew that a small act like this would bring a smile to many faces. Every few days, we host zoom sessions with 15-20 students where we discuss how the cards should be made. While interacting with children, I realised how imaginative and creative young minds can be. When I asked a 7-year-old what she thinks of healthcare workers, she said they are her ‘superheroes’ and ‘COVID warriors’.

We have two different age groups – 7-13 and 14-18, most of them are either part of Yein Udaan, and a few have started following our activities recently. We have asked children not to focus just on doctors or nurses alone, but to be more exclusive and add other members in the healthcare community. Children can do paintings or make digital illustrations and Vedika collects the cards and sends them to frontline workers. So far, we have sent out 50 cards across the city,” Amaira told DT Next.