'Children, this is a Post Office!'

KOCHI: Six-year-old Yacoob Shaheem has never seen a postman. She has read about one and seen his pictures in the school book. In the age of texting and Twitter, when the friendly postman is slowly losing significance, Shaheem along with her classmates got to meet a postman and see how a post office works at the Thammanam post office as part of the postal week celebrations.

"For the first time, I met a postman. We also saw old and new stamps. The postman showed us his big brown bag which was full of letters," said Shaheem, a senior KG student at Peace International School. Along with other students, she send Eid Mubarak greetings to her parents on a postcard. "The teacher showed us the red box to drop letters in which we dropped our postcards," added Shaheem.

Schools in Kochi are organizing various programmes as part of the postal week celebrations to create awareness about the importance of writing letters. While some schools took their students to a post office, others staged a play that showed the importance of the postal system. Some asked students to write letters to their loved ones on a postcard.

"We recreated the good old days when grandparents used to receive letters from a postman. We also explained to children how posts were the only means of communication earlier and how much time a letter took to reach its destination," said Annie Anthony, vice principal, Choice School. However, the kids were pretty sharp and observed how the appearance of the postman differed from the typical textbook image. "When we described a typical postman to the kids, they pointed out how the postman in their area never wore the brown uniform or a cap," said Shireen Furtil, KG section in charge, Assissi Vidyaniketan. Explaining the reason for celebrating the postal week, Beena John, KG in charge, Bhavan's Adarsh Vidyalaya, said, "When we asked our students if they knew about postmen, they replied in the negative. But they said they would often send SMSs from their father's phone!"

Source : http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com