A festival for the little people of Chennai

A fun day out for kids & their family. A day long festival in a quaint gallery & garden. The event will feature

- Pottery Possibilities by Kaveri Bharath
(Kaveri Bharath - Ceramicist In Charge at Dakshinachitra)
A hand and wheel pottery workshop for children.
Batch 1: 10:30 a.m | Batch 2: 11:45 a.m

- An ARTS & CRAFTS CORNER offering a fun range of hands-on art & craft projects by some super fun & talented folks.

- A fun PHOTO BOOTH, LIVE ART, CARICATURE BOOTH and a series of INTERACTIVE DEMOS and a PAINTING COMPETITION for children.

In addition to all of this, the festival will also feature a MARKETPLACE of great picks & easy buys for kids & their family, an ORGANIC STORE and a CAFE.

Do visit The Little People's Festival with your loved ones for a fun day out.

Entry is free.

For schedule of events and participants at the festival, visit : http://yocee.in/2013/04/the-little-peoples-festival-april-27-2013/

What if ... Just imagine, write and win!

What if you could stay indoors this summer, yet travel around the city and even transport yourself to the moon?

Yes, you can do and tell us about your experience. And win prizes too!
Excited?

Then, this contest is for you. Check here for details and participate.

Just imagine, write and win prizes.

How does it feel like as a reporter?

Ask YOCee's cub reporters, they would say it is fun!

But how does a reporter in a full job with a leading newspaper feels? It is fun again, but loads of work, commitment and strict deadlines, said Anusha Parthasarathy to the newly inducted student reporters of YOCee at the briefing session.

"I have seen your name in The Hindu. I am delighted to see you here," a young reporter pulled out a notebook and wanted an autograph from Anusha after her talking to the kids - na, the young reporters.

Anusha spoke about meeting people who wouldn't speak much at interviews. "How would I get a bite from such people!", she exclaimed. But she shared a technique that she adopts while she needs information from people of few words.

She also shared how she gets the photos she would like to go with her stories from the photographers. "It is not always you get what you wanted. You need to explain to your photographers about the angle of your report or feature that is on your mind," she told the children. But YOCee's reporters take their own pictures! "That makes you lucky!" Anusha said talking about the advantages of being a reporter cum photographer.

The real experiences of a professional reporter, sub-editor is an extra page of information added to the guidebook the YOCee reporters usually receive at the briefing session.

This time they also got a Reporter cap in their kit. The kit has a handbook, a reporter ID card, a notepad and a pen. And a cap too this year. Hey, we missed a photoshoot of all the reporters with their caps on!

No worry, YOCee is waiting to see the feathers they would add to their caps!

Reporters' group on Google

YOCee gets a lot of contribution from the student reporters who have enrolled for the year long programme. How do they get to report?
Some do have a nose for news and report on the events and happenings they observe.
Some need to be told why should share on where they had been to or what they had watched in their school.
Some need to be assigned to what they should report.
The YOCee team came up with an idea of making the assignments public and available to all the student reporters so that they can pick up the ones they line.
A Google Group exclusive to the Student Reporters.
All that is interesting and happening are posted there. The team posting them on to the group is just amazed at the speed with which the cub reporters respond to them!
In an hour the assignments are picked up!
Sometimes, we even receive two three reporters asking for reporting on the same event.
So, how do they benefit once they 'bid' for the assignment?
They get all the guidance on how to go about. They get to know the right contacts, who were earlier briefed about the role of cub reporters by the YOCee team. And file a great report for the readers.

Summer and the Directory comes back

Come summer in Chennai, the edition of ChennaiKids Directory gets prepared at YOCee's small office. The experience of putting the data and advertisements together is an interesting one.

Many services and business that cater to children are ready to advertise and support the revenues. Many more are ready to share the details for listing in the directory. Some even expressed that they liked the tit-bits found in the directory.

Whatever be the interests of the users, we are excited about making it and launching it every year.

This year it was puppets that came in before the launch. Bhanumathi, a good friend of us brought Chennai's flora and fauna alive on that day.

It was again the student reporters who graced the launch. Sruti, Sanjana, Smruthi and Nandini were proud to be at the event.

Read Sanjana's report on the launch here. 

Off the record?

Behind every reporting, the cub reporters have interesting stories to share.
They are not official, but go to say how much they love being reporters and see things at close quarters.
Recently Prerna Submanian was at the Chetan Bhagat's book launch. She enjoyed the Press privileges at the event, It was a just a Press seat though!
Back at home and after filing her report for YOCee, she sat down to pen the hilarious side of the event on her blog.
These writings are not just what the reporters think of sharing off the stage, but they do tell you many things. Give her a thumbs up if you liked her blog post.

Hunting around Chennai

When it was Puja Holidays -a long one week holiday - we thought the kids could be actively engaged online.

Who are the 'we'?

YOCee and Bambaram. Two independent outfits that cater to the city and its kids in completely different forms and ways.

Why online?

We knew the kids would anyway be online playing, chatting, 'facebook'ing and 'hangout'ing on Google Plus. So why not some Googling and learning?

That worked well. We launched ACID9 - Around Chennai in (9) Days, a Treasure Hunt completely online.

The experience was wonderful at our side when 76 teams (of two kids each) signed up for the Hunt. And what about the participants' version? To find this out, we had the finale face-to-face.

We had invited all the teams that signed up, participated, cracked or tried the daily clues and treasures. We got to know from them how much they enjoyed hunting online every day.

Many parents revealed that they had joined the hunt with their kids.

Yeah, we wanted and expected that!

The top 5 Hunters felt proud holding up their cups and sure they would remain in their showcases for ever!

Do you know what the question the kids, moms and dads asked alike was, when we signed off?

"When and what will be the next online fun?"

Who said the Internet is generally banned for kids in a south Indian city like Chennai?