ECO CLUB -- SMS Janak Puri, India

Eco- Club “Vasudha” of St. Marks Sr. Sec Public School, Janakpuri has been working tirelessly since 1999 to add up its contribution to improve the challenging environmental conditions. The coordinators and club members have undertaken various environmental friendly activities like tree plantation, campaigns against noise and air pollution and the awareness campaigns amongst the society like “No Plastic for me”, “Say no to crackers” and the most important one the “Cleanliness Drive”.

Keeping in mind “COMING TOGETHER IS A BEGINNING, KEEPING TOGETHER IS PROGRESS,WORKING TOGETHER IS SUCCESS”, the club has joined hands with The Art of Living in its Clean Delhi- NCR Drive campaign for which the school has adopted A-3 block of Janakpuri for spreading awareness to keep the surroundings clean.

Reported by Vinayak Goyal

Working For A Cause -- SMS Janak Puri, India

“A SURE WAY FOR ONE TO LIFT HIMSELF UP IS BY HELPING TO LIFT SOMEONE ELSE”

Whenever there is a call for Social and community work SMS Janak Puri has never left any stone unturned . We are aware of our social responsibilities and are trying to lend a helping hand to those less privileged than us.

The students interacted with village Students and learnt the way they lead their lives. They visited their respective homes, shared much information, played Cricket and sketched some drawings with them. Our students also gave some gifts to them which brought smiles on their faces. It was a wonderful experience to cherish.

“GOONJ” AN N.G.O, WORKING FOR THE UNDERPRIVILEGED CHILDREN

Our school participated in a 3 day interaction programme called “PRATIBIMB-2009” organized by GOONJ, an NGO and received the third prize amongst 18 schools in the “Seeking Solutions” event for presenting a mime on rural problems. The mime depicted how the unscientific beliefs of illiterate rural people in “quacks” & “ojhas” can ruin them.

The school received a trophy and a certificate for their presentation.

S.M.S Faculty contributed items such as stationary, woollens, soft toys in large bulk for the underprivileged children this year as well. It is a regular feature of the school which involves the students from all the classes right from class I to class XII making them realize their moral responsibility towards the underprivileged children and thus sensitizing values of consideration and humanity amongst young hearts.

HELP AGE INDIA
Under the aegis of Help Age India, the students of our school contributed Rs. 67,738/- in order to support the senior citizens of our country, When Bihar was devastated by floods, the children of our school contributed 1050 Kgs. of rice and 50 Kgs. of pulses to help the people in their hour of crisis. The students of SMS contributed an amount of Rs. 67,738 towards the “School Education Cum Fund Raising Programme” under the aegis of Helpage India given by our Chairman Mr. T.P Aggarwal to Manjeet Singh , Sr. Manager of Helpage India.

Our school is closely associated with NGOs Prerna Niketan & Muskaan. Prerna Niketan is a voluntary organization working for the physically challenged people. Muskaan is a vocational training centre where intellectually challenged and differently able children are trained.
Diwali Mela’s are organized by the NGO’s like Prerna NIketan and Muskan in our school on regular basis. The students are encouraged to buy their products as the proceeds from them go for a noble cause.

Reported by Vinayak Goyal

HELPING FOCUS SMSMB

It had all the ingredients of a cultural festival - music, dance, and even a rock band; what set it apart was the fact that the event has been conceived and executed entirely by visually impaired people.Aimed at sensitising people about those who are unable to see, visually-challenged anchors, dancers and rock-band artists came together to put up a show at Pragati Maidan here on Sunday evening to mark World Sight Day."India houses the world's largest population of blind people. Of the 37 million blind people across the globe, over 15 million are from India," said Suman, a software engineer and one of the visually-challenged presenters at the function.The event was organised by Antardrishti, an initiative for reformation and rehabilitation of visually and physically challenged people."Despite all the literary progress, visually impaired people are treated as dependent and in certain cases even as beggars. On the one hand their family disowns them or treats them as a liability and on the other various mafias use them for beggary. This section still craves for acceptance by the society," says Pratichhaya, a visually-impaired student of the Lady Shri Ram College who participated in the event.She also said that ensuring employment is an important tool of empowerment for the visually-challenged."We have set up factories exclusively for the people from the visually and physically challenged population, where they are employed on wages to produce candles and herbal soaps.They are also engaged in terracotta (diya) painting and garment stitching. The products, hence made, are put on sale at shoppers' hub like Gandhi Mela and Delhi Haat. The earnings go to their welfare fund," points out Deepa Kaushik, Co-ordinator Antardrishti Project.Apart from this, the employees are also entitled to the Provident Fund and ESI facilities, like any other central or state government employee, she adds A band of visually-impaired artistes performed popular numbers like "Allah ke Bande," "Maula Mere" as well as self-composed songs during the event to mark the World Sight Day.Pop singer Jasbir Jassi who was present on the occasion said, "India is a land of invincible talent. All they need is recognition. It feels proud to see visually impaired people perform with such zeal that I could hardly make out that these people cannot really see their instruments.

PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO VIEW THE EVENT ON YOU TUBE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYsQ7_vByAU
Reported by Sarojini ( A member of SAM) Student of St Mark’s Sr Secondary Public School Meera Bagh New Delhi, India

HELPING FOCUS SMSMB

REPORT ON PRERNA NIKETAN

Prerna Niketan is a voluntary organization working for the society especially the physically challenged children. Ms Mrinal Kanta Saxena
(Ms Meenu Saxena) is the founder and the president of this organization. Prerna
Niketan was established on 23rd November 1998 with only 5 children. At present, there are 51 children (only boys) from 8 yrs to 19 yrs of age. Due to shortage of space girls are not included.

AIM OF THIS ORGANIZATION

Actually, Ms Meenu wanted to do something for the society as she thinks God has given us this human body to do constructive things. So she came up with the idea of establishing such an organization. Prerna Niketan helps the youngsters get over their insecurities and imparts in them the life skills needed to contribute to society on equal
terms and also encourages parents to provide their children suffering from some diseases like polio, with medical treatment. Children here are also given vocational training like candle making, diya making, flower pots, craft items, etc

CONTRIBUTION OF OUR SCHOOL

Our school organizes the Diwali Mela every year where organizations like Prerna Niketan and many more come and display their products. School teachers and students buy these products and provide a helping hand to such children and organizations.

Reported by Danish Girdhar Sarojini Mahajan

HELPING FOCUS SMSMB

MUSKAAN – A CREATIVE SMILE

Muskaan is a vocational training centre where intellectually
challenged and differently abled children are trained. The children are split in various units which are under rotation. Some units are bakery unit, candles and diya unit, gifts and stationary unit, etc. Here children are taught how to make these beautiful things. The items and products produced by MUSKAAN are put for sale in different schools. The money earned is utilized for the children’s education, betterment and their upbringing. They become independ

MUSKAAN AND ST. MARK’S

The students of our school, ST. MARK’S SR. SEC. PUBLIC SCHOOL, eagerly wait for the MUSKAAN CAMP, which is just put before the auspicious festival, DEEPAWALI. Our school and MUSKAAN promote an eco-friendly and green DEEPAWALI. Diyas, candles and paper hand bags of many varieties are sold. Students and teachers enthusiastically participate in this camp. This thereby promotesa pollution free DEEPAWALI. Teachers have also come forward with full zeal and zest. They are actively participating with MUSKAAN and teach our students how to save our environment by promoting a pollution free DEEPAWALI and hence working for a social cause. We salute the spirit of MUSKAAN.

Reported By Ravit, Malik Class10G
St Mark's Senior Secondary Public School
Meera Bagh, New Delhi, India

Hair for Cancer

During the 2009/2010 GVC contest, Erin was Skyping students in Croatia. One of the students commented, "your hair is really long." It was then that I first found out about Erin's hair donations! She told the students in Croatia how she has been growing her hair to donate for wigs for children with cancer. Not only that, but this would be her 4th such donation. I'd asked Erin at the time to do a before/after picture for this blog. She agreed, but said it would be awhile since her hair was not yet long enough. (Now you may not know, but the cut hair piece needs to be 8 to 12 inches in length. Hair only grows about 1/2 inch per month, so that's a good two year commitment!)

In Erin's own words, "This past summer was really hard. It was so hot, but the hair still needed to grow a bit more."

And here it is; the before and after. Erin is now in month 1 of growing her next donation.

Kids CAN make a difference!

San Diego

Students from Muir School worked at the California Coastal Cleanup on September 25th joining thousands of volunteers on California beaches.With 70% of the cleanup sites reporting,the statewide count stands at 73,377 volunteers. Those volunteers picked up 692,203 pounds of trash and an additional 59,228 pounds of recyclable materials, for a total of 751,431 pounds.



All students at Muir joined the United Nations International Day of Peace on September 21st. They made banners, doves, and pinswheels, walked a lap around the school, and submitted their photos to the Jane Goodall Roots and Shoots book.

Muir's kinder classes wrote letters to soldiers in the field and also sending them care packages with socks and food and others items. This is their positive response to the death of their teacher's brother, an Army staff sergeant in Afghanistan, on August 30th.

2009/2010 Summary of Helping Focus Examples

The helping focus category of the Global Virtual Classroom Contest is to encourage students to focus on demonstrating ways of giving back to an area of need in either their local community or internationally.

Several teams displayed an outstanding helping focus in their websites. A few examples are listed below:

GVC09-16, winner of the Grand Prize in the secondary school category, lead by Anne Lambert, John Muir School, USA (CA); Lakshmi Srinivas, St. Mark's Senior Secondary Public School, India; and Hiroyuki Fujita, Wako Kokusai High School, Japan; designed their website around the idea of “Service before Self”. The site emphasizes organizations and individuals that have made their vision and passion in life. The site continues to focus on the students roles in service before self, highlighting KIVA, Flag ceremony, SOS Village and Social Services at St. Mark’s.

GVC09-01, winner of the Grand Prize in the primary school category, was examples of their website “Save Earth”. Students at Percy Julian Middle School, Oak Park, Illinois; St. Mark’s Senior Secondary School, New Delhi, India; and Washington West Elementary School, Olean, New York, all participated in recycling programs, blanket drives, food drives, food pantries, tree plantings, composting and herbal gardens.

GVC09-05, winner of the Third Prize and Exceptional Helping Focus Awards in the primary school category, was put into action as they wanted to do something to help with the relief effort in Haiti. The “Imaginary Island” team came up with the idea of “One Island Community Helping Another” and found the Haiti Houses project. Students spent their lunchtime recess creating pins from simple materials to sell at school functions. The team was able to create and sell over 250 Haiti House Pins to raise over $1050.00 to donate to the relief efforts.

GVC09-12, “Amazing Oceans”, winner of the Exceptional Creativity Award in the secondary school category contributed to the relief effort in Haiti. Point Option High School, a school of 75 students, raised $925 in seven days by creating themes for each day of the week, in which students could donate money to participate in. Themes included hat day, pasta and pajama day, cell phone and hot dog day and crazy sock day.

GVC09-02 team member Long Beach Middle School, USA (MS), , Second Prize winner in the primary school category, decided to do something to help other people who had experienced the results of a natural disaster. Students at Long Beach have experienced the disaster of nature with Hurricane Katrina and remembered how others had helped them. For one week, the proceeds of the five school based businesses donated 100% of their profits to the fundraiser.

GVC09-04, students at Oasis Charter Middle School participated in the Teens for Jeans program sponsored by Aeropostale. To encourage school wide participation, the GVC class designed posters to hang around the school. Students went from classroom to classroom and collected 297 pairs of jeans to donate to teens in Lee County, Florida and to teens in Haiti.


--
Charles Elsey
Program Manager
Global Virtual Classroom