Month: November 2016

In the month of August and September, I planned and executed my project – Kabaddi Tournament. Kabaddi is a traditional sport of India and we invited the students of our school to participate in this tournament with the aim to make this sport more popular and to also encourage unity among the different grades of our school. I organized this tournament with 2 of my friends – Anay and Nikunj. All three of us were already very interested in Kabaddi and but could not play it considering this sport was not popular and therefore we did not had players to play with. To solve the problem we decided to conduct a Kabaddi Tournament in our school. Another important aim behind this project was to be able to raise funds for providing stationary for the underprivileged students in our locality. This was something that all three of us felt very strong about.

As this sport was new for most of the students of our school, we knew that we would have to put extra efforts in marketing of our tournament. This is why we used multiple methods of marketing including word of mouth, posters and online forms. The main challenge in marketing that we faced was creating the poster and making announcements in classes. As none of us had ever created posters before, creating the poster proved to be challenging for us especially because we had different opinions on every part of the poster such as layout and colors. However, we then decided to draft three posters and then take our friend’s help to finalize one. This part of the marketing helped me learn designing posters which after the event I realized was a very important skill as it really helped us get more participants. Another challenge that we faced was lack of confidence while going to classes and making announcements about our tournament. This was because we were not very good at public speaking. We were very nervous before making the announcements, however after we made announcements in a few classes I got pretty confident and was then able to make better and more convincing announcements in classes. Therefore, it helped me increase my confidence as well. Sending online forms to students of all grades not only helped us promote our tournament but also allowed us to make a list of all willing participants. This was the easiest marketing strategy.

Another challenge that we faced during the tournament was that our theory of knowledge presentation’ consultations timings were clashing with out tournament timings. Therefore, during particular matches not all of the three of us were able to be present. However, because we were working collaboratively we were still able to continue with the tournament as the remaining two of us would monitor the matches. Working collaboratively also helped us reduce our workload as all of the tasks were divided among the three. This resulted in a more smooth and efficient functioning of the event.

Through this activity we were able to move a step towards issues of global significance such as empowering girls to play sports and helping in providing education for the underprivileged. For the teams in our tournament we hadkept it mandatory for the captains to choose at least 2 girls in their team of 5 to encourage girls to participate in the tournament. We even had made special announcements in classes to motivate girls to register for the tournament. I was very happy from the result of this when there were 2-3 girls in each team.

We had kept an entry fees of Rs. 100 per player in the tournament and after the end of the tournament we were able to generate a moderate amount of profit. From this profit, we bought stationery like notebooks and pens for the underprivileged students to encourage them to educate themselves and better their lives.

There was an ethical implication in our event as well for us to be completely dedicated to our aims and reasons for starting this activity in the first place and therefore not keeping any profit for ourselves. I felt really proud of myself and my friends after making a difference in the lives of those less privileged than us.

Appendix

During the navratri festival in India, a few students from our school had organized a garba fest in our school. People were invited to come to our school and celebrate navratri together. In the garba fest, me and 2 of my friends had set a stall for cold cocoa and donuts which we sold to the participants and other organizers. Our aim was to raise funds to buy seeds and small plants which we would then plant in our city. After the fest was over, we bought seeds of different kinds and bought plantlings from a local garden shop and planted them in gardens and roadside to help the environment.

The main reason of why me and my friends decided to raise funds for plantation was because a few weeks before the activity we saw trees being cut down from the sidewalks of our area to make space for footpaths. This really got us motivated to protect the environment by planting more trees.

Although, I used to consider that business mangement was my strength, through this activity I came to realize that I still have a lot to learn in the practical application of the knowledge gained in business management. I recognized this weakness through the challenges that we faced while implementing our activity.

The main challenge that we faced was predicting the amount of sales we would have. For the event we had prepared around 100 donuts and 100 glasses of cold cocoa, however, during the event we encountered a shortage of donuts and excess of cold cocoa. Following this challenge, we increased the price of donuts from 30 INR to 50 INR to convert our weakness of low supply into a strength of high revenues. We found out that our customers did not liked the taste of cold cocoa and we had to reduce its price to 10 INR from 30 INR to be able to sell all the cold cocoa we had and not let it go to waste.

Due to the fact that there were 3 of us hosting this stall, we had divided the main work among ourselves. I was handing the financial part, which included getting sponsorship, managing payments from customers and estimating the total costs and revenues. Although, we had initially divided the tasks among ourselves, later we realized that we would have to work collaboratively to achieve the best results. This is why we went in pair for negotiating the terms of the sponsorship. I also helped my friend prepare the donuts to be save time. This activity really helped me realize the benefits of working together.

Ethics was an important part of our activity, especially because we had not decided how much of our profits would we invest for the benefit of environment and how much would we keep to ourselves. We thought we would be able to decide that better after the Garba fest was over, when we would know our profits. In the end we decided to invest all of our earnings because we had not really acquired a significant amount to divide between ourselves and for buying plantlings.

Overall, this activity was a great experience for me. It made me feel good about myself while planting the plantlings in the garden. It also helped me learn the importance of working in a group.

To celebrate teacher’s day in our school, me and my classmates decided to produce a short film to present in front of our teachers on teacher’s day. The film was made with the main idea of “What would have been the case when our teachers were students?”. I was acting in that film and played the role of different teachers. The experience was really great!

This activity helped me learn a lot of things such as the importance of voice modulation and confidence while acting. It also helped me realize that I still have a lot to improve in acting. My friends were really helpful in this activity as they were the ones who taught me all about acting and also gave me tips such as imaging yourself in the character’s shoes while acting etc. I really believe that without my friends I would not have been able to deliver even a satisfactory performance.

The main challenge that we faced while during the shooting of this video was regarding the time and place. Due to the fact that most of us were not very good at directing or acting, we had to spend a lot of time on each scene and eventually we ran out of time available for us in school and had to meet somewhere else for the shooting. This was a huge crisis as it was really tough to find an empty classroom for us where we could conduct the rest of our recording. However, we did found a tuition class which was free for the weekend. So we used that class and finished our film.

Overall, this activity was a really fun experience where I learned a lot of things about acting and directing from my friends.