KOCHI: The exam fever is on, but summer camp enquiries have been pouring in from parents in Kochi, who are keen that their children should be fruitfully engaged during the 2 month long summer vacation.Since the last few years, the summer camp bug has bitten Kochi in a big way. The significant outstation population in the city has fuelled the craze as well.As it stands, there are a dozen summer camps and hobby classes awaiting children this year. Reena Lalan, a resident of the city, who started summer camps under the title ‘Hobbies’ around five years back, is organising as many as six different summer programmes for children at various venues in the city. Her summer camp at Rotary Balbhavan at Panampilly Nagar ( April 9 to April 30)offers quite a variety, including everything from dance and aerobics, craft activities, cooking, painting, gardening skills, model making, self-defence training among others. This is also a time when choreographers find themselves in great demand. Like city based dancer Nidhi Suresh, who will be conducting her solo summer class of Bollywood dance numbers called Danz-Kidz (April 2 to 16) at Rotary Balbhavan. “The demand has been rising every year. This is the first time I am going solo,” she says.Another hip dancing workshop this year will be Thandav at Regional Sports Centre (April 2 to 16, May 7 to 19), which again is Bollywood dancing.Most of these classes are 2 hour long, though children can opt for multiple choices. On an average, the cost for a 20 day programme ranges at a reasonable ` 1000-1500. The other major summer camp is the one from Rajagiri Public School that is in its third year now. The camp saw as many as 410 students last year, and enquiries have been pouring in this time too.Tanuja Omanakutan, Honary Secretary of the parent-teacher association for Rajagiri believes that the camps are a much-needed annual breather. “Otherwise kids are occupied with the remote and mouse all day long,” she says.On what prompted Reena Lalan to begin summer camps in the city, she says, “When I came to Kochi more than a decade back, I saw there were hardly any summer activities for children. I was looking for a hobby class for my daughter, and that is how the idea of starting summer camps occurred."Anu Joshi, a Gujarati who moved into the city from Chennai some years ago, says she’s relieved to find enough summer classes at last. Now her son Akash is practically out for the whole day, having taken admission for everything from football to cricket to hobby classes in a summer programme. And the youngster is loving it, says his mother. It is secondary to her that the activity is costing the family a whopping ` 12000.“It helps my son make friends, mingle with people, learn new things,” she says.
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