October 2016 – Page 2

Eye-checkup camp_8/7/16

October 5, 2016 Parvashi Manish Naik Parvashi Manish Naik

My friend and I volunteered for an eye-check up camp that was conducted by Rotary Club of Udhna in Navnirman school where hundreds of unprivileged students, especially teenagers . This service project has immensely helped these children in terms of their vision. Out of these hundreds of children, minimum 20-25% of children had poor vision, but had lack of money and knowledge. By this service project, these teens were benefitted as the ones who had a defect in their vision, were given professional checkup and eye-glasses were donated to them too.

Gujarati was the only language that could understand. But, there were some students who couldn’t even comprehend that. So, in that case we had to use actions and gestures in order to make them go to an assigned place for the checkup. But this way I also developed a skill to communicate without a certain language. All it takes a an expression to convey a message. This was a difficulty that I faced. It was very difficult to make students

Except for helping in volunteering there wasn’t much that we could do about it as we aren’t qualified enough to check whether there a defect in their eyes or not. But when we saw the difficulty they had to read the alphabets was heart breaking. There was this one girl who was asked whether or not she has specs or not, she said she but she doesn’t wear them because her classmates make fun of her. This gave a big shock to all of us present there. So, then it was decided that after all the required eye check-up, there will be a session with these student where in they will be given knowledge about so as why wearing eyeglasses is important and other important factors.

We realised that there is nothing more important than acquiring basic knowledge about our body. Seeing those children in these problems was heart throbbing.

This eye checkup camp has immensely helped these students and I feel glad to be a part of this.

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A day with Special Kids_6/8/16

October 5, 2016 Parvashi Manish Naik Parvashi Manish Naik

Doing a random act of kindness for the society is one of the best feeling ever. In past, I did different service activities but this activity was different than other activities in my CAS portfolio as this was for the first time I spent time with kids with different sort of inabilities. I knew about different NGO and different organisations working for these kind of children but I had never experienced how it was like to spend time with them. Starting with a prayer, I noticed all of these children singing their daily prayers with all their feelings wishing for a happy and peaceful life. I started off my day by learning that happiness isn’t just in good marks you bring or good things you achieve in life. Happiness can be found in such small things like a prayer. And that’s when I knew that there are hundreds of reason to be sad about but always one reason to be happy about and that one reason leads us to have a joyful life. After the prayers we did different activities with these children. As friendship’s day was round the corner, we had an activity with them where they were asked to make friends belts by themselves. So, I taught them how we could do it, and then helped them do it as well. I found happiness in teaching these people and i felt happy to see their zest for learning different new things despite of the negatives they had. I realised that apart from these enthusiasm for learning and finding happiness in small things, what made them the happiest was the feeling of being accepted, the feeling of having different friends. In the current society, these children do not have friends or relatives who visit them, they are confined to certain people only. So, i liked making this change and not only make these people happy, but also to do something better for the society. In all the problem that we encountered was communication and mixing up with them. It wasn’t easy for me to get hold with new people and communicate with them. But then, I learnt doing this with the help of different activities. What I thought was that these children probably have their own flaws but these children are equally capable of achieving pinnacles in life. This experience was a great learning and motivation for me. I learnt that passion and enthusiasm to learn can lead us to great paths in life. Overall, my first experience was very special.

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FSMUN

October 5, 2016 Naomi Pankaj Gajjar Naomi Pankaj Gajjar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAoGyVF9Imo&feature=youtu.be

Munning has always been an engaging task for me , but for the past two times what has been more interesting for me is organizing them . Organizing Fsmun is an event that is very dear to me as it was the first time that I won the best oc member award, so when this time the venture forms were out I filled them as soon as possible, not only me but the organizers of FSMUN also wanted me to be a part of the organizing committee. However, due to this the organizers did not conduct any interviews for me but held them for others. I later realized that this was somehow unethical, but the duties were already assigned and I could not do anything about it. Unlike last year I was made the head of the food department which made me more zestful about the mun because in the past MUN I was just another volunteer. However this year I had to collaborate and cooperate with a lot of people, Punya (my co-head), volunteers and the organizers . We had planned the meals with the school ensuring the school food policy was taken care of, this is again one area where ethics came into the picture.

We decided on the meals with the chef and Vishal sir , everything was set , but at the last moment the school chef was not there, he did not come back on time after his Diwali leave and was not even picking up the call as well. The school informed us about this situation just 2 days prior to the event. This led us to panic a lot. However, I knew that panic was not the solution but the action was. Maharsh , Punya and I then decided to go to different places and check out for food options , but we found meals to expensive or we did not like them. Hence we decided to get the food made by the school support staff itself because we did not have a lot of budgets. We fixed the menu with the school but got our socials meal from outside. So then I had to coordinate with the cater’s as well as the school accountant as I g=had to get payment done . One area where I faced struggles was that my co-head and volunteers did not turn up one day 2 and I had to manage everything alone .

But as they as at the end of the day your efforts will always pay off, I won the best Oc member award again ! This was a moment of pride for me and I was thrilled, the entire OC was proud of me for playing my role as a head well and handling the problem effectively.

One thing that I took back from the event is that no matter how effective your plan A is you should always have a plan B, because you never know what can happen when.

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PS: Skating

October 5, 2016 Pranit Nitin Bagadia Pranit Nitin Bagadia

Skating is a sport where I can remove all my stress and just be me for the time. In Skating there are only 2 students – Anshul and me; our coach is Mr. Asif Patel. For me Asif sir is like an ideal sport coach, because he is both fun and focused. He always cheers up the atmosphere in the ring and motivates us to the most, so that we could stand up and complete our given task. Skating is a very tiring and a hard sport. You really need to stay attentive all the time, otherwise the chances of you meeting with an accident increases.

In the starting of the year, I was really bad in this sport, because I had never done skating in my life. I used to feel very sheepish seeing the younger children skate much much better than me. This had got the good of me, but after few deadly motivational speeches from my coach I started to work really hard on this sport. His, so called speeches, constantly focused on one point, “If you don’t concentrate on your sports and complete your given task in time; then one day when you will look at yourself in the mirror, all you will see is a very very fat person”; and to be honest, I have no interest in being fat. Thus, I set some strict goals for the sport which were: a)being the best skater in the batch b)winning the district level competition for chord skaters c)becoming fit. I used to be very determined and punctual in my PS slots to try to achieve the goals I had set. In the process of achieving my goals, there were many challenges I had to face; the hardest challenge was when sir used make us do “long run skating”. In this we had to skate for a minimum of 40 rounds (1 round = 120 m) continuously without a single break with a constant speed, and if were not able to come up to sir’s expectations then we had to do the entire activity again from scratch. This challenge has always proved to be unfortunate for me because, if by any means if I was able to complete it, I used to be exhausted to the maximum level, and my body used to pain agonizingly. Eventually, the tasks that sir made us do were becoming harder by the day; it was becoming very difficult for me to participate in the activities and thus I used to be disinterested to participate in the following task and feel lethargic. But whenever I used to get feeling such as boredom or incuriousness then all I used to do was think of the goals I had set and what could be the possible consequences if I didn’t complete my goals. Thus, I had to be extremely committed to the tasks that I was given in order to achieve my goals; initially it was very difficult for me to complete the task given by sir but after time – achieving great number of practice in different methods and exercise, slowly, I was being able to show improvement in my sport, which made me feel very proud.

After a time span of 5 to 6 months I gradually understood my strength in this sport, was mobility. I could move around the ring freely, which gave me the advantage to overcome any opponent by cutting them from the forward. There were many ethical considerations that I had to keep in mind the most important one was to “never cheat”, it could have been very easy for me to skip the jogging or lie about the number of excercise that I have done. But I was so determined to achieve my goals that I prefered not to cheat at all, because after the loss will only be mine. So, I finally think I have done a good job in achieving my ethical considerations. Seeing my improvement in the sport, my coach used to praise me all the time, and used to give my example to the juniors. This used to make me feel radiant and superior. I know think that all the determinations and hard work I have given in this sport have proved to be worth.

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Project Work: Learning Camps

October 5, 2016 Pranit Nitin Bagadia Pranit Nitin Bagadia

For my project work, I have initiated Learning camps, with my friends: Manan, Shasvat, and Riya. The following video is my reflection. We initiated this program because we wanted to bring a change in our society. We wanted the children from the villages around our school to understand their concepts in the field of computer and language more efficiently. Learning Camps has helped me develop skills in many areas (which will be elaborated in the video). If I do get an opportunity in the future I will surely take part in the learning camp!

Link to Video

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Creative Mela_Creativity

October 5, 2016 Swani Sandip Shah Swani Sandip Shah

fotorcreated Creative Mela is an event that happens once in a year. I usually do not participate in it, but this time, I took a challenge to teach grade three and four, something that was new to me too, mask making. As the event manager told me that I had to organise mask making, I had mixed feelings- excitement plus blankness.

I am an artistic person but I had to collaborate with someone who had less or no idea about art at all. My partner and I researched about various possible masks that grade three or four children would like. We took an initiative to plan the whole activity in a way that would interest all the students, even the ones who are least interested in artistic stuff. Before the activity, we added superheroes to the sample mask list and in our school meal breaks, we made sample mask to make them understand what they could do. It was extremely important that we plan and execute because if we try to be spontaneously creative and learn mask making on the day of the event, then there are high chances that the crisis would occur.

The execution was much difficult than I thought. Children were pouncing on us, especially me because they had high demands of distinct types of masks and were not willing to draw by their own. Each of them was like ‘Can you please draw this for me? Please’. Here comes the ethical part, if I drew for one child, then the other student would be disappointed. Personally, I thought that it would be morally incorrect to do that, especially to ones who want to learn from me. Therefore, what we did was that I showed them how to line-draw on the board and told them that you could copy. To a great extent, this simple idea solved this problem which made me feel satisfied.

As I have never tried mask making, I learnt that while preparing and teaching. I thought that I was not good at crafty things, but I realised that it is a natural thing to me. It was really important for me to realise this because I gained some self- confidence that I can do this too.

Due to the limited resource as well as time, we divided children into two groups- drawing and sticking. My partner and my cooperation were an important thing as it was like only two of us for thirty children. There was a moment where we both got pissed due to the constant mischievous nature of the kids, so we both decided that we will play the music of their choice. Surprisingly, this made the students happy and later on they worked how we instructed them to. This made the activity looked much more organised than before.

At the end of the day, I was both mentally and physically tired but I had a feeling of accomplishment which I thought was worth it.

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Anchoring at Kalakriti- _26-09-15_Creativity

October 5, 2016 Swani Sandip Shah Swani Sandip Shah

“The struggle you’re in today is developing the strength you need for tomorrow” Robert Tew

I have NEVER in my life imagined myself anchoring at a stage or any place at all. But there I was anchoring in Dance Sector in the Art Fest, where around fifty schools from all the cities around Surat participated in classical, folk, fusion and international dance styles.

One day, one of our teachers asked me if I can anchor for an event. And surprisingly I said yes, thinking that it’s time to try something out of my comfort zone and learn how to be good at it as well. The event was on an early morning plus on the weekend. After having a tiresome week with loads of work, I was having a second thought on my decision but eventually I was persistent to keep my word and attain the event.

At the start, we were not given a script in particular. We were informed that this is the dance sector and you have to anchor for it. I was blank. I did not have any experience in anchoring and here I was speaking without even having a blueprint of what I was supposed to do. Eventually, my companion and I collaborated and spoke spontaneously about various dance styles and the participants. As it was not planned, there were many instances where we both started speaking together and then both stopped, leaving us in awkward moments in front of more than two hundred people. Therefore we decided to speak alternatively which cleared our ways out.

After some time, there was crisis going on because new participants were coming so we had to add them as well. We were extremely confused due to the constant change in the schedule. I am not usually good at handling spontaneous problems, however, my friend and I took the initiative to help the teacher plan, organise and change things while doing our original task which was to anchor. It was a demanding job for us to handle the situations, both on and off the stage.

At the end, the event turned out to be successful, better than the outcome I expected and surprisingly perfect; on time, all the participants seemed happy and the teachers appreciated us on our contribution and helpful nature.

It gave me a lesson for future that you should be ever ready for a sudden crisis and take an initiative to try to solve or help them even if it’s not the part of your work.

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Tree Plantation @ K.V Central school

October 4, 2016 Manan Sanjay Shah Manan Sanjay Shah

Sunday mornings usually are very lazy for me, I wake up late and take a lot of rest however this Sunday was different. Me and my friends decided to go for tree plantation, we kept our laziness aside and wanted to work for conserving nature and showed dedication for this activity by reaching for the plantation on time. With advancing time nature is constantly depleting and all my friends thought we need to do something about it. And then came this beautiful opportunity to serve nature. What best activity we can possibly perform to preserve nature? Planting trees! The tree plantation activity was the initiation of Nature Club a prominent environmental organization.

After completing the activity I can say I have successfully developed a new skill which is “Environmental care”. Initially I was not comfortable being around mud because it made me feel disgust and I felt dirty. As the whole activity of tree plantation revolves around mud, I started regretting my decision of coming for this activity however as I thought about the greater good that I will be able to plat trees so I decided to work in the mud and I actually felt really great about it. I started liking the idea of working in mud.

The biggest problem I faced was when I decided to plant bamboos. Bamboos needs to injected into the soil deep. For doing that I needed to hit the bamboo with big rocks and push the bamboo deep in the soil. However after each push injecting the bamboo deeper in the soil became hard. Also I cut my hands while hitting the bamboo with rock. However after multiple attempts I thought the task became easy and I almost felt that I had mastered a new skill. After sometimes I felt tires so I decided to take help from one of the member of nature club and some of my friends. With our combined efforts we successfully planted around 15 bamboos.

While planting some of the tress we needed to remove the plastic wrapping it had on its roots. All of my friends felt lethargic while planting the trees so we removed the plastic wrapping and threw it in the mud. But then our ethics and morals came in between and we thought that it would be hypocrisy as one side we are planting trees and on the other side polluting the same soil with the plastic. So we collected all the plastic in one place and threw it in a bin.

During this activity the member of nature club taught us about plantation of plants in detail. Also I see how this activity has a global consideration as I am working for nature which is facing threat globally. With all my small steps I am trying to make an impact in preserving nature. As we know the saying “Many water drops collectively make an ocean!”

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Debate Competition

October 4, 2016 Manan Sanjay Shah Manan Sanjay Shah

I participated in the Inter House Debate Competition that was a part of the Literature and Humanities Fest. The topic of the debate was “Capital Punishment” and our house had to speak against the topic.

This was a new challenge for me as I was not confident of my public speaking and debating skills however the competition gave me the opportunity to enhance these skills. I believe these skills are a crucial part of our lives. However, it was hard for me to talk against this topic as I found capital punishment justified for major heinous crimes. So finding something to speak against it, I had to focus on the ethical implication of capital punishment and how it is unjust on the emotional level. This gave me the opportunity to shift my method of analyzing content, now I found the emotional arguments in real life situations.

Working with a team was different experience as in usual debates I had to work alone, but this time I worked collaboratively with my team. This way I was exposed to a bunch of new ideas which I possibly could not think of. Working collaboratively also made our work even more productive as we had more points from everyone and each one of the member worked on a different sector of the team, for example I worked on rebuttals, others worked on collection suitable examples and etc.

According to me I showed perseverance for this competition as for a week I collected as much data possible on the topic I also thought of arguments which the opposite team could come with and I analysed the rebuttals for those arguments. I also was also like a mentor to the young members in the team and I pushed them to do more efficient research.

The topic of the debate dealt with an issue of global significance itself. The act of capital punishment is a very debatable topic and also a sensitive one due to the ethical considerations of killing a person. Working on it and evaluating the best course of action dealt with the global significance.

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Bal Mela

October 3, 2016 Riya Hitesh Shah Riya Hitesh Shah

Dancing is one of my most favorite activities, and also something I’m not too bad at. So when the forms for Bal Mela were released, I instantly ticked to be a part of the running stage, unaware of what was ahead of me.

3 days before the event, I was informed that my job involved 4 hours of continuous dancing, as the number of schools and children had increased. Instantly I felt, I didn’t want to participate anymore. Despite of my love for dance, due to my extremely poor stamina and dislike for physical exertion I wasn’t willing to go ahead with my participation. To my relief, there was an escape. My family was traveling to Mumbai that weekend for a family function that I reallyyy wanted to attend. I figured I had the chance to back out from the event with the excuse of going to Mumbai.
I instantly picked up the phone to call up my dad regarding it, but in that moment, I just realized a few things. I put the phone down, and went into thinking about the ethical aspect of the decision I was about to make. I realized that I had given my word to somebody. And that someone depended on me for their event. Additionally, the underprivileged kids that I was doing this for, don’t get chances like these to enjoy all the time. I was responsible in that moment for the happiness of those littles kids and for the organizers. I figured that I couldn’t let someone else down because of my own enjoyment and biases.
And so I didn’t. I stayed back at home, woke up in the morning and danced for 4 hours for those kids and for myself.

The sweat and the body ache had become all worth it, as I was proud to take a decision like this by myself. I felt inner peace and happiness as I knew that I had done the more difficult, but the right thing.

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