Mumbai: US First Lady Michelle Obama will be meeting some of city's underprivileged children at the University of Mumbai's library hall on Saturday, on the first day of her and husband, US President Barack Obama's visit here.
She is also expected to meet students of the university who will give her a presentation on ‘eco binding' of unused pages of notebooks to make new ones.
The meeting with the children was organised by a non-government organisation called Make a Difference (Mad) that works with poor youngsters. Around 20 children and 11 volunteers from Mad will participate in the programme.
Mad is a youth volunteer network working among orphans and unprivileged in India.
Quality education
Made up mostly of youth volunteers who spend a few hours weekly, Mad imparts English communication and computer skills to children in orphanages, street shelters and poor homes.
The aim is to provide them with quality education so that they acquire the skills to succeed in life.
There are around 850 Mad volunteers who teach close to 2,800 children in the cities of Kochi, Pune, Delhi, Mumbai, Mangalore, Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad, Nagpur and Chennai.
The First Lady will interact with the children, who will earlier attend a workshop, from 3 to 4.30pm.
The meeting with University students came after Vice-Chancellor Dr Rajan Welukar wrote the authorities.
The Sydenham Institute of Managament had come up with the idea of eco-binding to reduce wastage of paper and consequently the cutting down of trees. Around 10 to 15 students will give the presentation.
All through the programme, the entire Fort area of south Mumbai will be cordoned off.
On Sunday, the Obamas will go to the Holy Name School where they will celebrate Diwali with the students.
A group of eight girls will perform a diya or lamp dance to the tune of Sarva Dharma Samabhav (All religions are equal) while Class IV students will do a Koli dance.
