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Celebrating THE JOY OF GIVING in Classrooms: We at Teach For India, Chennai were a part of the nationwide Daan Utsav- THE JOY OF GIVING WEEK, where the little champions in our classrooms led the way in spreading the joy of giving by coming up with their own ideas . Quite a few of us were pleasantly surprised by the amount of passion, gusto and most importantly, the joy these students worked with, throughout this week.

Our city has had a number of heartwarming stories to share this year for THE JOY OF GIVING WEEK and with full confidence, we at Teach For India – Chennai can say that our students will be back again next year to spread the joy .

Here are a few stories from across the city where THE JOY OF GIVING was being spread.

In our Primary School in Jones Road, the passionate Fellows of this school- Aishwarya, Alekyaa, Savita, Meenashi and Goutham drove that passion into the students. They really looked forward to THE JOY OF GIVING WEEK  as the 180 Grade 3-Grade 5 students of the school came up with different ideas and they themselves assigned groups and looked into the functioning of the activities.The grade 5 students gave a day off to each of the grade 2 class Teachers by handling their classes.The Joy Of Giving was felt by the watchmen –Venkatesh Uncle and Moorthy uncle as they had a light 3 days  with the Grade 5 boys helping them out during busy mornings. The non-teaching staff- Renuka Akka, Pencillama, Maniyamma  of the school were given 3 days as they had to just supervise the students who were doing their chores for them...their idea of giving! Each student of Grade 3 donated 2 Rs to buy the Non-teaching staff a hearty meal from Sangeetha. It was a pleasant surprise when the students said that “ WE COULD CELEBRATE GIVING MORE OFTEN” and they came up with the idea of taking Non- Teaching staff for a movie with the remaining money collected.

When the students at our Velachery Primary school learnt about the Fundamental Rights and Duties, they immediately recognised that there was an awareness gap, and set about solving that problem. They organised a march in their community as a solution to this, in turn giving their community the gift of awareness. In the meanwhile, at North Chennai, students from our Primary School at TH Road expressed their gratitude to the traffic policemen who help them cross the busy TH Road everyday with handmade notes! 

Here is what Alamelu, our Fellow at our Primary School in Kamdar Nagar has to say about her students' initiatives to celebrate the Joy of Giving. “When I asked the class of Kindness Crusaders (that’s what she calls her class) what can we do to celebrate Daan Utsav, they got super excited and gave many ideas. As a teacher I was just more than proud to see their blooming creativity.  Finally I asked them to brainstorm and come with one idea to start off. They told me that they want to prepare charts about good habits, explain the same to all younger classes from 1st  to 4th  grades and stick the charts in their classes. But when I asked them why, their answers made me think "If we give them any materialistic items they might lose or break it after some time, but these habits will stay with them till the end and this might be something that's worth giving them "! And yes, they gave a new meaning for ‘Joy of Giving’ to me! Perspective mattered, and how students think at times always blow our minds away.”

For our 7th graders at Girls High School Saidapet, Daan Utsav was not a special day after all, as giving is inculcated into their learning on a daily basis. During their Maths class, their teacher demonstrated Ratio and proportion via preparation of soft drink for the students to understand better, and as part of their activity they were asked, what if they had to scale up the preparation, if at all they had to make sure everyone in and around is school get a drink, to make the summer seem a little lighter.  The students scaled up the production of the preparation and shared the drink with the people around them. Giving is more than anything , and learning that in a multi-dimensional way was one unique approach that CGHSS Jones Road adopted. 

You can spread the Joy of Giving this New Year too by helping our children get an excellent education, by supporting our cause. Wishing all of you, a very Happy and Prosperous New Year ahead! 

Links:

• An account by Alekyaa, our Fellow on her journey so far!