Visited the Children’s Play School in Vevey, where Ranju takes Achyut regularly from 2 pm to 6 pm on all Mondays and Tuesdays and on all Thursdays and Fridays from 9 am to 11 am. On Wednesdays when she goes to conduct Bal Vikas classes she takes him along with her. The Play School is a very interesting place where children merely come and play – no teaching and no other pressure. They have plenty of toys to play around with and absolutely no restriction on their movements!
Here in RanjBharath’s residence on the third floor, thanks to the wooden platform and the overall silence, whenever Papu runs around it can be heard very clearly by the residents living below. No wonder that the Play School is a very welcome place for Papu!
In the Play School, the guardians of the children are required to be present with the children during the entire playschool period. Mothers of children are of course there but there are cases where there are fathers babysitting with the children – maybe due to their wives going to work! The children are from a multi cultural, multi ethnic, multinational and multi racial background and it is indeed interesting to find Chinese, African, Indian, Swiss, American and children of other nationalities playing together!
The Swiss Govt runs the School. No school fees. Two lady volunteers look after the school – one speaking French and the other English. When the parents leave the Play School they contribute whatever they wish in a small box – this takes care of the expenses of coffee and biscuits etc for the Guardians of the children.
