My Award Journey

Makesh Srinviasan, Bronze Level participant from Hiranandani Upscale School, Kelambakkam shares his Award Journey experience with us in his words. IAYP has helped me to grow from an ordinary person to someone who is respected, given importance and now seen in the world from a different perspective. The Award Programme brought many things into my schedule that helped me to improve myself in myriad ways. It shaped me not only to take up more responsibilities and challenges but also to handle them and be a citizen that a nation would be proud of. This journal records details of my experience in this course starting from July 2015 until today. As an IAYP participant, responsibilities were assigned to me by the school for the first couple of months. I was part of an adventurous trip to a hill station called Coorg. It was a three day fun-filled trip where adventurous activities were organised like zip lining, trekking, river rafting and swimming in the cold river. My main focus was to learn how to be independent, gain experience and provide valuable support to my companions. To move out of my comfort zone and challenge my own learning, fears and skills was the outcome of this adventure section. Next, in the service section of the Award, during the weekends, my friends and I provided education and basic computer knowledge to kids from the orphanage. We conducted regular and scheduled classes for them. Although during some weekends it wasn't possible for them to attend classes due to transportation trouble, national holidays, floods and rains, nevertheless, we managed to reschedule their classes on the availability of our time periods. Moreover, apart from teaching, I also worked for rescue and relief missions during the floods times in Chennai. Every day was very critical, and I used to spent many hours in preparing food, collecting clothes and gathering necessary items from shops. Eventually, we grew into a big association involving more than 50 members from our society. Together, we were able to help hundreds of poor families and kids. We provided food packages, medicines, water bottles, clothes and other necessary items, to about 1000 people in more than 5 different areas. Besides these, I had also been involved in taking photographs (for which I was given the responsibility) for an event that took place in my community. Compassion, communication and connect with the community were the cherished gifts that I saved from this section of the Award journey. My physical activity involved playing football. Being my favourite sport, I made good progress in it. I practiced regularly for about 2 to 3 hours on the ground and about 1 hour indoors to workout. During exams and flood time I was unable to play regularly. But apart from that, I was a very regular student and had shown progressive improvements in this sport. It is a sport that once broke my nose but still, I love playing football. In skills Section, my interests were mainly focused on playing instruments such as violin and piano, and I chose piano. From July till today, I have been practicing piano lessons regularly and with great interest. Although, due to some reasons my teacher couldn't continue, but I kept on practicing my lessons at home for about an hour or two almost every day. Eventually I found a new teacher but he insisted on starting the lessons from the basics. But even then, I did not feel discouraged. I love piano today as much as I loved it on my first day! Thanks IAYP for making me what I am today!Click here for more pictures