Award Ceremony at Chennai

December 8, 2017

NAA organised an Award Ceremony at Lalaji Memorial Omega International School, Chennai, on December 8, 2017. Secretary General John May was the Chief Guest at this ceremony. The day started with an informal interaction with the Award Leaders and Principals of different institutions present for the ceremony in which John May expressed his views about the Award. He explained the ethos of the Award and the importance of non-formal education and how this is becoming the need of the hour today and for the future. John also explained how best the Award concurs with this non-formal education. After this interaction, the School NCC team and School Band gave a Guard of Honour to the Chief Guest. Formally the Award ceremony started with the lighting of the lamp. This was followed by a solo song presentation and a musical Jugalbandi and presentation of the School Song.

Award participants and Award Leaders from AMM Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Chennai; Athena Global School, Chidambaram; Crescent School, Chennai; Ebenezer International School, Bangalore; Good Shepherd International School, Ootacamund; Lalaji Memorial Omega International School, Chennai; Olcott Memorial School, Chennai; TI Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Chennai; and Vidya Mandir Senior Secondary School, Chennai were present. Eighty Bronze Certificates and sixty-five Silver Certificates were awarded. Twenty-three Award Leaders and Volunteers were recognised for their services with Special, Valuable ad Outstanding Meritorious Service Certificates.

NAA expresses sincere thanks to the volunteers, staff and management of Lalaji Memorial Omega International School, Chennai, and to the Principals and Award Leaders who were present during the ceremony and gave their support. To see the pictures of the ceremony click here

Award Ceremony at Kolkata

December 7, 2017

NAA organised an Award Ceremony at The Heritage School, Kolkata on December 7, 2017. John May, Secretary General, was the Chief Guest at this ceremony. The ceremony started with the lighting of lamps by John May (Secretary General, The Duke of Edinburgh's International Award Foundation), Sarah Robson (Head Fund Raising, The Duke of Edinburgh's International Award Foundation), Kapil Bhalla (National Director, IAYP India) and Seema Sapru (Principal, The Heritage School, Kolkata). This was followed by a classical dance presentation by an Award participant and later a small play on "Longwa Village – One village, two nations". Seema Sapru welcomed all the guests and invited John May to felicitate the Awardees.

Award participants and Award Leaders from Akshar School, Kolkata; All Bengal Womens' Union Home, Kolkata; Calcutta International School, Kolkata; Delhi Public School, Newtown, Kolkata; Emmanuel Ministries, Kolkata; La Martiniere for Girls, Kolkata; Mahadevi Birla World Academy, Kolkata; Modern High School for Girls, Kolkata; Open Award Centre; Ramkrishna Mission Blind Boys Academy, Kolkata; Sri Sarada Math, Kolkata; Sri Sri Academy, Kolkata; Sushila Birla Girls' School, Kolkata; The Bhawanipur Gujarati Education Society School, Kolkata and The Heritage School, Kolkata were present. One hundred and twenty-three Bronze certificates; forty-eight Silver Certificates and five Gold Certificates were awarded. Besides this, twenty-six Award Leaders and Volunteers were recognised for their services with Special, Valuable and Outstanding Meritorious Service Certificates. John May also interacted with the audience and shared his life experiences with them.

NAA wishes to extend its sincere thanks to the volunteers; staff and management of The Heritage School, Kolkata for all the help in organising a wonderful ceremony. Also, we wish to extend our thanks to the Principals and Award Leaders of different schools and institutions, who were present during the ceremony and boosted the morale of the Awardees. You can see the pictures of ceremony by clicking here

Young Achievers Honoured with Award: Challenge India-International Special Project

The annual ceremony for Challenge India - International Special Project was held at Auxilium College on 11th Feb 2016 in the presence of Kapil Bhalla (National Director), Bivujit Mukhoty (Programme Manager, Dinesh Gajendran (Coordinator, Challenge India- International Special Project), Dr. (Sr). Eugini Fathima Mary (Principal), Dr. (Sr). Mary Sheela Susairaj (Vice Principal), Dr. (Sr). Mary Josephine Rani (Vice Principal) and Dr. Beulah Suresh (Head, Dept of Business Administration). Over 200 participants received their Bronze and Silver Award during the ceremony for their active participation in the development process of self and community.

Speaking at the ceremony, Raghunath, a Bronze Award participant from Sukkampatti village near Trichy said, “I have started doing science experiments and research about global warming and climate change in my village, which has been selected as Best Project for Young Scientist Award”. Deveneen Baskar said, “I have been volunteering for the Award activities from day one with the YES centre, which improved my volunteering and public speaking skills and today I am a proud recipient of the Silver Award”. Another participant, Caroline, a BBA Student from Auxilium College said, “I got an opportunity to improve my leadership skills through volunteering service, which improves my team building and networking skills. As a result I have been elected as Secretary of my College Students Union Council.”

Dinesh Gajendran, Coordinator, Challenge India-International Special Project and Executive Director of Audacious Dreams Foundation said, “Over 500 young people enrolled from various institutions from Vellore and Trichy and other rural districts of Tamil Nadu, and are using this Award programme as a tool to inspire the rural young people to challenge themselves by learning life skills and serving the community. The result is that over 200 young people achieved their Bronze and Silver Award. We pledge to take this programme to many deserving young people across Tamil Nadu through “Challenge India-International Special Project of IAYP India”

National Award Authority wish to congratulate all the Awardees for their success and wish them all the best for their further Award Journey. Click for pictures

Award Presentation Ceremony for Punjab Schools

The National Award Authority organised the Award Presentation Ceremony for the Government Schools of Punjab on 8th December 2014 at Mata Jaswant Kaur Memorial School, Badal.  Honourable Education Minister (Punjab Government) Daljeet Singh Cheema presented Awards to 126 Bronze and 11 Silver Awardees (69 Girls and 67 boys). Dr. Kamal Kumar Garg (Director Public Instructions - Secondary Education), Ms. Darshan Kaur (Director Public Instructions - Elementary Education), and Ms. Snehlata (Dy Director Policy and Award Coordinator Govt. of Punjab) were also present during the ceremony.  Kapil Bhalla (National Director) and Bivujit Mukhoty (Programme Manager) representated the IAYP.  After the ceremony the participants had the wonderful opportunity of meeting the Honourable Chief Minister of Punjab S. Prakash Singh Badal and C Raul, Principal Secretary School Education, Govt. of Punjab. The NAA Team would like to express special thanks to Col. Anand Swaroop, Principal Mata Jaswant Kaur Memorial School, Badal and all the Award Leaders and Volunteers who helped in organising this event.  Click here to see pictures

My Memorable Days in Darjeeling

By Monoswita Sharma

On 25th of April we started our journey in the Himalayas. We thank our Principal Sir, Lipika Maam, Monojyoti Sir for giving us this opportunity. Also, we were very lucky to have with us Mr. Tarun Saikia sir, the first person from Assam to climb Mt. Everest. From this Trekking we improved our life skills. We always got all the comfort, facilities from our parents, teachers but after starting our journey in the Himalayas, we got the opportunity to step up from our comfort zone and see the real life.

On 25th April at 07:00 p.m. we started our journey from our school to Guwahati railway station. The next morning we reached N.J.P. station. We had our break-fast in Siliguri Near about 10:30 a.m. we started our journey again from Siliguri till Maney Bhanjan. After reaching Maney Bhanjan we went for a walk. The next morning we went to Tumbling by jeep. We reached Tumbling at 09:30. We had our breakfast. At 11:00 our real journey begins we started walking from Tumbling. We walked fro 10 k.m. We enjoyed walking. On the way we met with heavy rain shower and all of us put ‘barsati’ as we did not have raincoat. We all enjoyed walking in the rain but also more effort and energy was needed. Finally we reached Kal Pokhri at 05:00 p.m. It was very cold and also we met snow falls. We played in the snow. Next morning at 08:00 a.m. we started our journey from Kal Pokhri to Sandakphu, though it was 6k.m. less than the previous day but more energy was needed and it was also very tiring as we had to walk up the mountains. The temperature was near about 20C or 30C. We reached Sandakphu at 03:00 p.m. we had our lunch went for light seeing. We were staying in the border of India and Nepal. We stayed in India and had our snacks in Nepal. It was very cold out there.

Next morning we started trekking at 08:00 a.m. We walked for 22k.m. Up above the mountings there was water scarcity, so we had to reduce our uses of water. At 11:00 a.m. we stopped for our lunch in Gurdung. That day we were walking in the mountains for the last time. Again at 01:00 p.m. we started our journey of rest of 10km. from Gurgund. In the evening we reached Rimbick after walking for 22km. That was our last day of trekking and we have completed it successfully. The next morning we went back to Darjeeling. We stayed there for one day. On 2nd May finally we reached back to Guwahati.
In this trekking we learnt how to be self disciplined, de¬termined and we have developed leadership qualities, teambuilding capacity, adaptation, problem solving capacity, resilience and also our inter personal rela¬tionship.

We would like to thank Tarun Saikia Sir (1st Assamese to climb the Mount Everest) and all the team members of his committee for guiding us and creating a sense of discipline and consciousness about protecting our environment within us. We brought back lots of sweet memories, love towards nature within us.

Gold Award Ceremony 2014

Achieving your Gold Award is really a big step in your young life. It shows that you have the ability, focus and determination achieve. It shows you have done your share to achieve all-round development and at the same time open to learn from what your future has in-store for you. So it’s only right that you get a proper celebration for your achievement. Our Gold Award Ceremony are designed to celebrate this achievement.

We are happy to announce that S. Y. Quraishi, former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of India, has consented to presenting the Gold Awards to the successful participants at the Annual Gold Award Ceremony on July 7, 2014 at India International Centre, New Delhi.

You can soon expect to receive an invite to GAC 2014 and your presence will make this event worthwhile.