COVA camps are great draws C H Sindhura

HYDERABAD: With an aim to bring people of different communities together, the Confederation of Voluntary Associations (COVA), an organisation striving for communal harmony through participative community empowerment, has organised a series of summer camps for children in the Old City.
Nearly 2,500 children are attending these camps.
The effort is to ensure that children from different communities participate in these camps which aim to inculcate values of tolerance and communal harmony.
COVA co-ordinator Yusuf Ali Khan said they have focussed on the Old City as it was socially and economically underdeveloped. “And our focus is on total human development,� he added.
The ongoing camps, 30 in all in the Old City, provide children an opportunity to intermingle with other children and learn various crafts like embroidery, painting and mehendi. The COVA also organises camps for women.
In its effort, the COVA is being assisted by the city traffic police, Inter Faith Forum and the AP Pollution Control Board. For children, the added attraction comes from “Koshish�, the COVA-managed theatre group comprising children from the Old City.
It stages plays on various social issues such as child labour, dowry, education and health.