Christmas Tea Party Bags

The OSBM Youth Wing is interested in acts of selfless service as part of pursuing a dharma and in order to make an impact on those marginalised in society. In order for this to be achieved, we partake in many charitable events in our local community, as you can see from our previous articles. This time we are returning to Moorcroft Special School in Hillingdon in December - where we will be holding a Christmas Tea party with our very own Santa and Elf!

Youth members busy making gift bags

As a group we all decided that we wanted to give each child something for Christmas, so we came up with the idea of Christmas themed gift bags. These bags will help to bring with us the festivity of Christmas. We wanted to do this as it is quite an amazing feeling to be able to have the power to help other people. From previous experiences, being able to witness that gleeful expression on a child’s face as they see their gifts is quite remarkable.

In order for this project to be successful, the youth group has been split, randomly, into four groups. Each group has a specific theme related to Christmas. For example, Santa, Reindeer, Christmas trees and Snow/Snowmen.

Presents ready to be packed

A youth member carefully drawing out reindeer ears
to decorate gift bags with

This way there will be plethora of gifts; yet, all will be relatively similar to avoid anyone feeling left out. We purchased Christmas stationary and small toys etc in our groups and you can see the exciting outcomes below.

Our final products!

The Youth Wing's 2nd Birthday!



It is that time of the year again where we are constantly surrounded by festivities and everyone is in the Christmas spirit. At the OSBM youth wing we had another reason to celebrate at our December meeting with it also being our second birthday!

We started our monthly meeting with two great, informative student –led presentations; one being a  presentation covering a spiritual topic, in this case a presentation with the theme of materialism and the other focusing on a future charity project. Soon after we began our second birthday celebrations with an array of food, ranging from Sri Lankan delicacies to rich chocolate brownies and also decorated our meeting room with vibrant balloons.



Youth members acting out their spiritual word



After we had finished our luscious treats we began our party game; spiritual charades. Everyone was teamed up in pairs and chose a spiritual word that Ghaya Loveday, our youth co-ordinator had prepared beforehand. As each team attempted to act out their word everyone was eager to guess and contribute. Examples of spiritual words that we had were: ego, ignorance, Sadguru and bhakthi yogi, which as you can imagine were at times difficult to guess!

All in all, it was a fun, interactive, celebratory meeting full of fun and laughter whilst celebrating our 2nd birthday. We look forward to hosting  many more innovative and fulfilling charity events as well as developing our spiritual knowledge at our monthly meetings in the New Year.