The past two months have been full of activities and we have been off to a good start as a nascent NGO. Just to fill you guys in on what’s happening at Shield, here’s a brief update:
Jan 25: Sensing an alarming ignorance about our constitution and fundamental rights of citizens in India, we organised a session on the same. Many people attended the session.
January
Jan 12: As one of our first activities, a ‘Youth Festival’ was organised at Dharavi, especially for women. The turnout was a slim 14; however, the participants had a good time.
Jan 25: Sensing an alarming ignorance about our constitution and fundamental rights of citizens in India, we organised a session on the same. Many people attended the session.
Jan 28: The highlight of the month was the cultural programme at the Samaj Mandir Hall, Matunga Labour Camp, Dharavi. A total of 22 persons performed on the day and 98 people were in attendance as audience.
Shield is looking at tying up with schools in Dharavi to conduct workshops/seminars and talks on various issues that most urgently need to be addressed for the students in these schools. Most of the issues discussed are the ones that are not covered in the school syllabi. We have already made a start at that front – three of the sessions were conducted in February.
Feb 15: Indian education is high stress education. For the primary school students coping with this, we discussed the importance to relax from studies and how to do it. For ease of remembrance, we also taught the 56 students present the method of pictorial representation of concepts to be learnt in education. It is common knowledge that visual memory is strongest in children. The idea was to help these kids learn better.
Feb 20: Teenage years are the toughest and yet, often the best and most productive years of our lives. It is therefore important for adolescents to know the ways in which they develop cognitively. If they learn to anticipate and foresee the huge physical and emotional changes that they will go through in their adolescents years, coping with these changes would be easier. To this end, a session was conducted for secondary school kids. Attendance was 36.
Feb 22: As if the growth pangs weren’t enough, secondary school students also have to deal with high-stress examinations. In order to address this, a session extrapolated from the one conducted for primary school students was conducted for the secondary school students too. Thirty-seven students were in attendance.
Here are some pictures of the students at school:
Since then, we have been running a pilot project – a free course in English speaking. At the time of writing, over 10 sessions of the course have been conducted for 14 beneficiaries. Success rate and further updates should be available soon.
Apart from these initiatives, vocational training in mehendi and basic beauty courses is being imparted at the centre everyday from 12 pm to 4 pm to 19 ladies.
We will update soon with the work in March.
February
Shield is looking at tying up with schools in Dharavi to conduct workshops/seminars and talks on various issues that most urgently need to be addressed for the students in these schools. Most of the issues discussed are the ones that are not covered in the school syllabi. We have already made a start at that front – three of the sessions were conducted in February.
Feb 15: Indian education is high stress education. For the primary school students coping with this, we discussed the importance to relax from studies and how to do it. For ease of remembrance, we also taught the 56 students present the method of pictorial representation of concepts to be learnt in education. It is common knowledge that visual memory is strongest in children. The idea was to help these kids learn better.
Feb 20: Teenage years are the toughest and yet, often the best and most productive years of our lives. It is therefore important for adolescents to know the ways in which they develop cognitively. If they learn to anticipate and foresee the huge physical and emotional changes that they will go through in their adolescents years, coping with these changes would be easier. To this end, a session was conducted for secondary school kids. Attendance was 36.
Feb 22: As if the growth pangs weren’t enough, secondary school students also have to deal with high-stress examinations. In order to address this, a session extrapolated from the one conducted for primary school students was conducted for the secondary school students too. Thirty-seven students were in attendance.
Here are some pictures of the students at school:
Since then, we have been running a pilot project – a free course in English speaking. At the time of writing, over 10 sessions of the course have been conducted for 14 beneficiaries. Success rate and further updates should be available soon.
Apart from these initiatives, vocational training in mehendi and basic beauty courses is being imparted at the centre everyday from 12 pm to 4 pm to 19 ladies.
We will update soon with the work in March.
