Spreading Love and Warmth

Sneha Singhal, an Award participant from Uttam School for Girls, narrates her experience of visiting Sewa Samarpan, a school for underprivileged children. Recounting this visit, she highlights how ‘happiness’ has been redefined for her and her fellow participants.

'You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay'.

Donation is an act of charity; it symbolises kindness and generosity on the part of the donor. Every year on Christmas and New Year’s, Uttam School for Girls hands out clothes and toys to students of Sewa Samarpan, a school for underprivileged children. Besides that, it organises workshops and programmes for these children while also supporting them financially.

This year as well, IAYP participants collected old toys and woollens from the students of all classes and then packed them neatly. Some participants, accompanied by a teacher, visited Sewa Samarpan and were elated on receiving positive responses from the students there. It was an immense pleasure seeing them feeling jubilant on receiving gifts. Contrasting our privilege with theirs, we felt our urge to do something for the underprivileged growing stronger. We concluded our visit by singing Christmas carols and getting photographs clicked with our new friends. Keeping up with the spirit of sharing, we also donated huge amounts of warm clothes to Eazy Hug, an initiative by Godrej to spread love and warmth this winter.

“The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving”, says Albert Einstein. Real happiness is attained through sharing. We take this opportunity to thank IAYP for inculcating in us the true value of community service through the Service section of its programme. We’re proud that Uttam School for Girls has taken this initiative and we really hope that others, too, make efforts to better the lives of marginalised individuals and communities.

A Solid Step Ahead

 

Charged with passion and motivated by the vision to show that young hands can do wonders that the world cannot fathom, the Award participants of Pt. Uma Dutt Public School, along with the Award leaders, Dr. Pankaj Vashishtha and Gufran Khan visited Machkund, an ancient sacred place in Dholpur city and offered their services by launching a cleanliness campaign.

The area from Monisidha Hill to Machkund Lake was squalid, with plastic bags and other waste material scattered all around as a result of a massive fair that took place, visited by thousands of people from all over India. The open fields and the area beside the road were not in good condition and the participants had to combat numerous difficulties to collect polythene bags and plastic waste material. They cleaned the entire premises in four hours nonetheless, reaffirming the philosophy of the Award Programme to ‘Engage. Equip. Empower. Reward.’

The Award participants, together with their mentors, have made volunteering to clean 10 square kilometre wide premises a part of their Service section of the Award Programme. The purpose of this cleanliness drive was to create awareness among the villages regarding cleanliness and to highlight the ill effects of poor hygiene. Such a pioneering effort by the Award participants convinced the inhabitants to not use polythene bags in their daily routine and ensure cleanliness in their respective areas. Initiatives like these not only fortify IAYP’s philosophy and values but also strengthen the individuals who choose to spread its values far and wide.

IAYP’s Community Service Projects Have Made Us Empathetic

The following report has been submitted by Shubhra Jain, an Award participant from Uttam School for Girls, who narrates her experience of a community service project to be undertaken as part of the Award Programme. She highlights how it helped her and her fellow participants grow.

I believe that IAYP’s community service projects aim not just at building strong and self-reliant communities but also empathetic individuals who endeavour to create a better society. As part of one such community service project, a number of Award participants from our school, Uttam School for Girls, organised a fund-raiser talent show to support the students of Sewa Samarpan Vidyamandir – a school that aims at educating the children belonging to economically disadvantaged sections of society.

We toiled to make the event a huge success. We prepared posters and put them up in the corridors of our school to promote the event. Teams were prepared that coordinated with teachers and looked after the discipline and finance. Also, we made entry tickets out of old used paper and an entry fee of ₹10 was charged from those who witnessed the show. Our students gave enthralling performances; while some delivered commendable dance performances, and some left the audience spellbound with their melody in singing. Not only these, the participants also performed a magic show and a street play depicting the plight of beggars in our country. To mollify the atmosphere were some funny ‘shayaris’ that appealed greatly to the audience.

Our skills and efforts bore fruit when an amount of ₹6500 was successfully collected through the fund raiser. With some part of the amount, we purchased textbooks which were distributed among the students of Grade VI and VII of Sewa Samarpan Vidyamandir, while the remaining amount was used for purchasing 28 metres of cloth with which the students of Sewa Samarpan Vidyamandir created exquisite shopping bags to be used in place of polythene bags. This activity helped the students there to acquire a new skill for a lifetime.

'No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.' In the process of raising funds for the students at Sewa Samarpan Vidyamandir, we developed a sense of empathy and understanding – values that will guide us in our stride of bringing about a change in the world.

Sankalp: The Aspiration to Live a Life of Dignity

This report has been submitted by the students of Scindia Kanya Vidyalaya, in which they share their experience of installing a sanitary napkin production unit as a measure to deal with women hygiene issues.

In her pursuit of inculcating experiential learning, Mrs Nishi Misra, our Principal, came up with the idea of community service for women as part of the Service section of the Award Programme. Having shared the idea with us, she guided us to survey the areas around Gwalior to find a cause to espouse. During our analysis, we found that women hygiene is a highly stigmatised issue. It was then that we discovered the essence of our community service activity. Mrs Misra worked hard to acquire a low cost indigenous sanitary napkin unit from Coimbatore, with the vision of producing sanitary napkins for women who can’t afford them.

After the successful running of this unit at the school campus, Mrs Misra launched women empowerment projects in two villages, Jarga and Virpur, where low-cost and eco-friendly sanitary napkin machines were installed and the production is managed by village women. Having been approached by numerous hospitals, NGOs and scheme developers that expressed their desire to purchase this product, Mrs Misra has been working out a small scale industry model to make this product self-sustaining.

Though Scindia Kanya Vidyalaya is an all girls’ school, Mrs Misra invites students of both sexes from schools in both India and abroad to engage in ‘shram-daan’ (labour service) and earn ‘volunteer hours’. She has developed it into an activity during the Youth Festivals that she holds at the school. We, together with students of other schools, work on manufacturing the napkins and assist in their distribution at the village.

At times of natural disasters like the floods in Kashmir, the Nepal earthquake or even the recent Kerala floods, we try and work relentlessly on these manufacturing machines to send a good batch of sanitary napkins, along with other relief materials to the needy. We deem it our duty to donate as well as work hard on these machines to prepare sanitary napkins for women who need them.

The initiative of setting up this unit is called SKV-Sankalp, a collective resolution taken by Mrs Nishi Misra and us to help women live with dignity. We staunchly believe that this will go a long way in gender sensitization of the youth.

How Service Helped us Become Better Human Beings

Community Service is an essential part of the Award Programme, and the Award Participants from Euroschool Airoli kept themselves deeply involved with the community. Deepali Bhagwate (Award Leader) is sharing the viewpoints of two Bronze Participants, Neel Vinchi and Shravya Kanungo, on their Service section.

Neel Vinchi (Bronze Participant) says: 

The International Award for Young People Programme has developed many abilities in us, one of them being the ability to make some time for the people in need of our help. I feel very proud to say that I have managed to set aside time every week to do my community Service. I started my Service with a Christmas party for the underprivileged children of Mulund, Mumbai. I learnt that there are a lot of people in this world who live so close to us, and yet so far. I had volunteered to help the Rotaract Association of Mulund in organizing the party. My visit to Prem Daan, Airoli, Navi Mumbai completely changed my perspective. The people living there were very poor; indeed, Prem Daan was there only saviour. I was very moved by this and thoroughly enjoyed interacting with them and helping them in their work. I had also gone to a kindergarten where I was transported back to my childhood. Such was the joy I gained in meeting those little children! When I went to an institute for the blind I loved interacting with the people and also read to them. That was when I realized that I am indeed lucky to have my body functioning properly and that the ones who don't are facing a ton of difficulties in life. Therefore, through the IAYP Service, I have learnt to be happy with the little things in life!

Shravya Kanungo (Bronze Participant) says: 

When I enrolled myself in the IAYP programme, I had no idea that it would make such an impact in my life as a young teenager. It has probably been the most important educative tool that my school has given me, wherein I learnt things, not just by reading and writing, but by doing them practically. The IAYP programme has not only helped me develop my survival skills and make my connection with nature but most importantly, it’s Service section has made me aware of my duty and responsibility as a human being towards the underprivileged sections of our society. As a part of these programmes, my school had organized a visit to Good Shepherd School in Navi Mumbai, where we taught the junior students about the solar system through origami. We also visited a remote area of Maharashtra called Shahpur, where we conducted various activities and study sessions for the primary, middle and senior school students. The awareness brought in by these kind of programmes has made me a better human being. Such activities have become a part of my life now. I have started visiting orphanages and elderly institutions and spend time there by doing whatever best I can in my capacity as a student.

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‘OOTOPIA’ at the Ooty Lake

Students of Ooty get together to cherish Ooty Lake on World Water Day

On the 22nd of March, 2018 the Award participants of Good Shepherd International School, in liaison with the Citizen Voluntary Group Make Ooty Beautiful, celebrated the World Water Day at the Ooty Lake as ‘Ootopia’: a dream for an eco-friendly and culturally sensitive Ooty.

Attracting almost 3 Lakh tourists in 2017 alone, Ooty Lake has proved to be invaluable in securing Ooty’s current economic state. Yet, with the vast influx of sewage water, waste, and muck into the lake, its name has become almost synonymous, among the local citizens, with that of a cesspool. Thus, the Award participants of Good Shepherd International School found it thoroughly imperative for some form of ownership to be inculcated within the primary stakeholders for the condition of the lake: the citizens themselves.

To further strengthen their initiative, they collaborated with 18 other schools of the town, each school putting up a performance for ten minutes, with regard to water sanitation. To also broaden the expanse of the students’ creativity, the schools produced on canvas their interpretations of ‘Ootopia’, how the town could be the true epitome of ecological stability while also basking in the splendour of its cultural significance.  Click here for more pictures

A new dawn… efforts still a long way to go

Award participants of Delhi Public School Megacity, Kolkata took part in a Campaign on Health and Sanitation. A brief report from Atanu Chatterjee, Award Leader.

As a part of the social initiative project, DPS Megacity is in the process of adopting a village nearby. We started with the donation of articles and food-grain to the village. The Award participants felt an urgent need of toilets there and conducted an awareness programme on health and sanitation with the local people, where the basic importance of cleanliness and how they can keep themselves and their surrounding clean was demonstrated and discussed. The Award participants are now in the process of building a toilet there too for proper and sustained sanitation.

Fostering Maturity and Compassion through Service

"The greatest good you can do for another is not just sharing your riches, but reveal to them their own.”

Award participants from Bawa Lalvani Public School, Kapurthala visited and offered their services at the Kusht Ashram (Leprosy Home) in Kapurthala. Below is a report from Ms Ekta Dhawan, Principal, Bawa Lalvani Public School, Kapurthala.

Award participants of Bawa Lalvani Public School, through their Award routine at school, are committed to serving society. The BLPS Award volunteers remain on their toes to work towards the noble cause of community service, i.e., lending a helping hand to leprosy patients. In this Academic Year session 2017-2018, the team adopted "Kusht Ashram" (Leprosy Home).

The Bronze and Silver Award participants have been assigned a facility in the Kusht Ashram and each student is individually responsible for the upkeep of the earmarked space.

The participants have made it their mission to cater to the well being of the residents of the Ashram; this is an endeavour to make them feel a part of the general population and 'wanted' in society.

The official caretaker at the Khusht Ashram, Shri Keshav Pandit, informed the IAYP Team that the residents being cared for come from within India and also from Nepal and Bhutan. This effort has brought about a sense of maturity and compassion and, further, has had a very positive effect on the personality of the participating students.

Walk It Like You Talk It!

Sudhiksha Kaushik, Gold Award Participant from Maharaja Sawai Man Singh Vidyalaya, Jaipur found garbage handling is one of the challenging areas in India. She decided to work for the same and succeeded in setting up the examples. Sudhiksha is sharing a report here.

"I love nature. I love to be in it. It is beautiful, permanent and beyond us." These words from Marshall Vian Summers are the true expression of my feelings. A trip to the beautiful hill station of Shimla in the lap of Himalayas in class 6th with my family was my love at first sight with nature. The beauty of this place left such a great impact on my tender mind that I decided to take up environment conservation at school. Conserving environment became my passion and I started encouraging others too by my 'walk it like you talk it' attitude.

My father’s career in Merchant Navy got me to travel since a very young age, because of which I was exposed to the efficient garbage management and was intrigued about the details kept in mind in respect to the aspects of cleanliness displayed on board my father’s ships and in various countries I travelled to. Gradually I started to draw comparisons between the waste management in my country and the countries I had visited. In Ohiri Park at Hakata in Japan I saw how people cleaned their dog’s faeces when they took their dogs for a walk, in the U.S.A, I saw how people followed the laws made by the government and also actively participated in all programs related to the upkeep of the environment, in Singapore, I saw how people never littered around. This difference led me to work towards sensitizing people in my city about environment conservation and cleanliness. My endeavour is to break the taboo surrounding garbage handling in my country.

I knew that the task I have taken is difficult for a young kid but the determination to see my city as clean as the cities of the developed countries led me to do things that many children of my age are not even bothered about. In the beginning, people were not very accepting of my vision. They were least concerned about littering and polluting the environment as they assumed that it was not harming them directly. They believe that it is the duty of the government to take care of environment conservation. I started to persuade people to be concerned about the environment by organizing various activities like e-waste collection drives, cleanliness drives, and old books, clothes and shoe collection drives, etc. For organizing all these activities I, along with my younger sister started an organization called ‘R4 – Our fore vision’ which is a registered NGO today. Eventually, people started joining my drives. My teachers started talking about my initiatives in school and my peers began helping me spread awareness about environment conservation. I was declared the Environmentalist of The Year in the 9th and 11th standard. Our NGO ‘R4- Our Fore Vision’ has partnered with the biggest marathon in our city called Jaipur Marathon and the biggest theatre festival in the city called Jairangam as their cleanliness partners where people were motivated for garbage segregation and cleanliness by our volunteers. We arranged for the disposal of the collected garbage to the recycling centre.

The Clean India Mission launched under the leadership of our honourable Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi increased my determination to take this cause even to grass root level. This has resulted in people accepting the responsibility for the cleanliness of their surroundings. Today many households in my residential society compost their kitchen waste using the low-cost composter called 'Golden Pot' developed by me and my sister. I am proud to say that through my initiatives I have brought about a change in the mindset of the students of my school and the people I have interacted with. I know that I have succeeded in my endeavour when I see the students in my school not only support my cleanliness mission but also help promote it. Click for more pictures ...

An Evening Well Spent

Rahul Thomas Kurien, Silver Level Award Participant from Good Shepherd International School, Ooty, is sharing his experience of visiting an Old Age Home

After this visit to the old age home The Little Sisters of the Poor, I truly believe in the quote “growing old is compulsory, growing up is optional”. On November 11, 2017, a group of Award Participants went to an old age home. The sole purpose of this visit was to entertain, interact with hapless people and make a difference in their lives at least for a while. We did our homework well by planning and preparing for the items to be presented to the aged.

As soon as we reached the old age home, all of us were very curious to know how the home is managed. The caretaker explained to all of us in detail about the struggle they go through to meet the expenses on a daily basis. There were more than 100 men and women trying to find solace in the minimum comforts available to them. Most of them are invalids and have already entered the sunset of their lives. Many of them have been abandoned by their own children. Some of them are still keeping their hopes alive that one day their beloved children would come and take them away. It was a sorry state of affairs.

All of us distributed snacks to the aged as it was time for evening tea. We listened to them in silence when they explained their tales of woe to us. The interaction helped us learn valuable lessons for life. Then it was time for the presentation of an entertainment programme. The aged people thoroughly enjoyed the skit, songs and musical presentations. I was delighted with the outcome of the visit as it made a difference to their evening. It was heartening to see the smiles on their faces and they will linger in my memory forever. I returned to the school with the complete conviction that come what may, I will always make every effort to take care of the old aged. My heart was heavy but I consoled myself that I had done my best to make them happy. As the school bus started, I waved to the aged, with a promise on my lips that I would return soon. Click here for more pictures

The spirit of community service

It's challenging to work towards a holistic vision of reality. Belgians accepted the challenge to change lives, perhaps even their own. A report by Ekta Dhawan, Principal, Bawa-Lalvani Public School, Kapurthala.

The purpose of living a good life is to be useful, to be honourable, to be compassionate, to be a reason of joy in someone’s sorrows and to make a difference in the society of which we are a part.

Once again the Bronze Award participants of Bawa-Lalvani Public School, Kapurthala, kept themselves busy in community service throughout the weeks with the motive to serve the community while developing humility and compassion. The Award Programme infuses in the participants the spirit of service before self and that of leading a disciplined lifestyle.

These Bronze participants went on an awareness programme in Sultanpur Lodhi Distt Kapurthala. The Group performed street plays to create awareness about the crucial topics: Family planning, Corruption, and Pollution, with a view to achieve economic independence and eradicate other socials evils prevailing in society, such as the menace of corruption and the pleas of the youth against pollution.

The participants held conversation sessions with the audience of the village; the objective was to counsel the villagers about the various health problems prevailing due to air and water-borne diseases, the 3R’s (recycle, reuse and reduce) and the ill effects of pollution.

Outreach to the community has resulted in becoming a potential source of inspiration to the village students. Participants felt the power to make a difference by participating and pulling communities together, helping individuals find solutions and foster human well-being.

The participants have developed the ability to manage their time well, having to balance their work commitment, and have shown that they have this quality in abundance.

The social needs of the residents are addressed through our ongoing engagement and they are encouraged by our participants to contact relatives and friends in order to restore broken relationships! Click here for more pictures

Contributing to the National Campaign

Thirty-two Award participants of Pt. Uma Dutt Public School, Dholpur took an initiative for the maintenance and safeguarding of Indira Gandhi Stadium, Dholpur, under the surveillance of Award leaders and mentors Dr. Pankaj Vashishtha and Mr Gufran Khan, in which The Express T-10 ward cup is going to be held to encourage and promote the national campaigns Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao and Swachh Bharat Mission. To promote these social causes of Women Empowerment and Women Education, 64 teams from the whole district will participate in this tournament.

The Award participants resolved to go and clean the playground every Thursday. They made the ground clean by handpicking all the filth and garbage like polythene bags, wrappers and other stuff. Besides this, the Award participants did plantation around the surrounding boundary and took a pledge to maintain it. This initiative was appreciated by the local authorities and organizers of the express T-20 cup and by the common people too.  Click here for more pictures

Development and Maintenance of School Garden

About 20 Award participants of Harvest International School, initiated the project: “Development and Maintenance of School Garden” under the guidance of mentors Deepak Sharma, Pooja Gupta and Vinita Seth.

They selected a piece of land and started from scratch. Initially, there were only 13 participants, but as the weeks passed by more and more participants joined the project. They started by making the land suitable for gardening by tilling the land and adding fertile soil and manure to it.

The participants designed the garden and did fencing. of the garden by planting flowering shrubs. They selected the areas for developing a lawn and planted grass. They demarcated a medicinal plants section and planted medicinal plants on it. Since the inception of the project, students have been involved in tending the garden, adding soil and manure, and the planting of grass, flowering, ornamental and medicinal plants. They maintain the garden by weeding, watering and planting new plants on a regular basis. Click here for more pictures

A Visit to an Old Age Home

Sidhartha Sen Gupta, Award Leader, Miles Bronson Residential School, Borjhar, Guwahati is sharing a brief report on behalf of Award participants about their visit to an Old Age Home.

On 17th of October, 2017 we went to an Old Age Home for the purpose of charity and service. It was 3:30 p.m. when we reached our destination. Honestly speaking, we were really nervous about meeting the people there. But visiting that place was one of the best things we could have ever done. Seeing the residents of the old age home for the first time set an usual feeling in our hearts. Taking a bundle of Diwali greetings cards in our hands, we first set off to interact with all the grandmas and grandpas. We were not really sure how to actually start a conversation but as we opened up to them, the warmth in their eyes melted our hearts. They shared their stories with us. It was indeed heartbreaking to hear that their children had abandoned them. Most

of them had diseases. We can, in fact, learn a lesson from them. We have everything that we need. Our parents try to provide us with all the happiness in life, yet we complain, asking for more, while they seem to be the happiest with just the little they have. The fact that we could actually make them happy and see them smile was the greatest feeling of satisfaction ever. We also met many disabled children and offered them chocolates. We played with them and enjoyed their friendliness. Spending time with them was a precious experience. We could bring a smile to their faces and that was the greatest feeling of self-satisfaction ever, because, at the end of the day, it is this happiness that counts. If those candles and candies were the gifts for the destitute this Diwali, for us it was their smiles and happiness.

Ripples of change for a Cause

Award participants of Sat Paul Mittal School, Ludhiana took an initiative to support the specially-abled children. A brief report.

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy… 

I awoke and saw that life was service… 

I acted and behold, service was joy."

Rabindranath Tagore

It is rightly said, “Only a life lived in the service of others is worth living”. Abiding by this maxim and to support Aashrivad Schools Amba Project, the Satyans affiliated with the IAYP Programme have taken a step ahead to help pave the way from “Dependence to Independence” for specially-abled children. The Satyans have taken an altruistic initiative of promoting Indian handicraft and entrepreneurship. The Satyans put up stalls for the sale of beautiful garden planters and exquisitely designed biodegradable and eco-friendly diyas. The money collected from this initiative will be entirely spent for buying technology to further the endeavour in making the specially-abled children technologically adept for self-sufficiency. This initiative has provided the Satyans with an opportunity to rise by lifting others, and the power to bring about a change for good.

This initiative was undertaken by Satyans on September 27, 2017 and was duly acknowledged and appreciated by the parent fraternity. They encouraged the Satyans by contributing to the beneficent sale for a noble cause. Ms Bhupinder Gogia, Principal, Sat Paul Mittal School, also appreciated the efforts made by the Satyans of the IAYP Club and stated that Satyans should work consistently with the conviction for a humanitarian outreach and create ripples of change for a better society.

Cleanliness Drive - A Report

The Award participants of Sanjay Ghodawat International School, Atigre undertook the second phase of their cleanliness drive in the village of Hatkanangale (Maharashtra) in the Old Market Area on Saturday, September 9, 2017. All the 96 Bronze and 8 Silver participants were involved in this activity under the supervision of 15 mentors.

The purpose of the second phase of this cleanliness drive was to create more awareness among the villages regarding hygiene. The open drains which were cleaned during the last drive were not in a good condition, and the participants had a difficult task ahead of them as the drains were again filled with polythene bags and grass had sprouted around the drains. The Award participants convinced the villagers not to throw litter everywhere. They also discussed the negative impacts of poor hygiene on our health. The participants visited each home and shop of the area to spread awareness. It took nearly three hours to clean the drains. The work was appreciated by the villagers and the Sarpanch of the village. Click here for pictures