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Mumbai CHILDLINE and CHILDLINE India Foundation celebrated CHILDLINE's 11 th anniversary on 16 th October, 2007 at St. Mary's ground; a tradition followed each year with much enthusiasm and excitement.
Preparations for the party began a month and a half before the due date, but the calls from children who knew started much earlier! A ground had to be booked, the caterers had to be found, music had to be organised, stage had to be made, decorations had to be put up and children had to be called. This is a yearly event that had thousands of children eagerly awaiting the birthday party.
There were a few game stalls for the children organised by Kshan. Some stalls had body painting. The lines were long to play these games, including hooking a prize, and other such perennial party favourites. The body painting stall not only had long queues, but had some children fighting for their turn to have a cartoon drawn on their hands, faces and legs.
Besides a CHILDLINE poster, the stage was decorated with balloons and streamers. A professional music system was in place and Rafiq, a CHILDLINE team member and loyalist who was a street kid himself hosted the show as the DJ cum compere. He encouraged applause and brought the crowd together.
Word of the party spread fast and the  children came in hordes. Eleven buses filled with children arrived. Most of them were from shelter homes, various Non Governmental Organisations (NGO)s and 10 percent of them were from the streets. There were about 700-800 children present from all over Mumbai at the party with their volunteers and NGO workers who performed group dances, solo songs, mimicry and other activities. Children from Aasara Center also presented a beautiful collage to
the CHILDLINE Didis as a Happy Birthday gift to CHILDLINE.
The bacchas enjoyed the most. They were given lip-smacking samosas, cakes, frooti and chocolates distributed at the party.
Very often, the CHILDLINE 1098 song played in the background, as the children entertained themselves. The grand finale saw the children dancing non-stop to the beats of the latest songs in true Bollywood ishtyle . Everyone caught onto the vibrant and infectious energy and joined the dance floor dancing for hours. No one wanted the music to stop in spite of having danced for several hours.
 For the closing dinner, children were given delicious chicken and veg biryani packets (Courtesy Foodlink
Mr. Shahbaaz Khan
) to eat, after which it was time for goodbyes.
CHILDLINE Birthday Party was attended by a diverse group of supporters and well wishers who volunteered at the party with great energy- the party was attended by corporate groups like M-phasis ( whose employees volunteered at the function)
Tata Consultancy Services and Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) as well as supporters like Dr. Nilima Mehta, ex-chairperson, Child Welfare Committee; Byculla Police Station Police Inspector; CHILDLINE and CHILDLINE India Foundation ex-staff, students and volunteers from Sophia's College and Tata Institute of Social Sciences as well as individual donors. Everyone caught on to the vibrant and infectious energy and participated whole-heartedly. Even passersby stopped to stare at the adrenalin filled dancing!
CHILDLINE is once again thankful to everyone who helped in making this event a grand success-Donors, volunteers, corporates, government representatives, allied systems, staff, supporters and well-wishers but most importantly all the children who really made it worth it.
CHILDLINE would like to thank all its donors who made the Mumbai Street Children Party possible. We would like to acknowledge State Bank of India, M r. Ramesh Shah, Sumer Corporation, Manohar Vinayak Joglekar & Mr. Narendra Vidyalay, DOSSA Service Insurance Ltd., STRATCAP Securities India, Food Links -Sanjay & Sweta Vazirani, Nirmal Radhakrishnan Nair & Sharmila Nirmal Nair, Parmesh Venkateshwaran, Shivani Sheshadri, Siddhartha Siva, Sarita Jang, Balasubramanium Kathiresan, Murtaza Presswala, Sandeep Jain, Bhavesh Dedhia, Shailesh Rathod, Mrs. Sanyogita Parulekar, Mrs.Sanchala Sen, Mrs. Alo Ghosh, Mr. Shahbaaz Khan, Mr.J. P Kakkad, Mrs. Sandhya Mohite, Mr. Alwyn, Jenaz Printers, Mr. Thakker, Mr. Rathod , Byculla Police Station, Mr. Gadade, Traffic Police, Byculla, Kshan Volunteers, M-phasis Employees, Mr. Paresh, Anuradha Tours and Travels, Mr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala and all our other supporters.
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