CAS Interact Club Initiatives by Mehak Singhal, Director, Interact club

Relief materials collected for Nepal 

 We have all been avidly watching the news and reading the newspapers about the earthquake that has struck Nepal. Nature's fury has led to a great loss of lives of loved ones, homes, livelihoods and so much more. The locals have been suffering from starvation and a dire need for tents, potable water, food, medication, warm clothes and woolens etc has arisen. At such an occasion, all that matters is that our fellow humans need our help and we at Pathways believe that it is our responsibility to rise to such occasions and work together to help those in need.

The Pathways School Interact Club organized a collection drive for Nepal to help the victims. Through an assembly presentation and by sending out mails to the entire Pathways community, an awareness drive was carried out to sensitize the community to the needs of Nepal. Carton boxes were placed out at the entrance to secondary building and the entire Pathways community was asked to make liberal contributions both in cash and kind.

We received a truly overwhelming response from both the Primary and Secondary school students, teachers as well as parents and large cartons of warm clothes, blankets, medicines, packed food items, clothes, dry ration, sanitary and hygiene products were collected. Additionally monetary contributions were also received for an amount of Rs. 1.30 lacs aprox. The collected items are being dispatched to the relief organisation named ‘Helping Hands’ who will be distributing these materials effectively to Nepal.

It was heartwarming to see how the Pathways community contributed to the cause wholeheartedly. The Interact club students would like to sincerely thank all the parents, teachers and students for all their contributions.

Bringing  Smiles ..

It has been very rightly said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”. Keeping this in mind, the Interact Club decided to adopt, “Sai Bal Sansar”,

a school for less privileged in Noida. The students of this school have been associated with our CAS programme for over a year. The students from this school visit our school every Friday and our DP students have been tutoring them in English , IT skills and varied sports. We students, as a part of the CAS programme also had the opportunity to visit this school and were very concerned to see the dilapidated condition of the school building.

The walls had cracks and there were lose wires all over, which posed a serious threat. The rooms were not well lit and not well equipped with furniture and fittings.  The Sai Bal Sansar students were very keen learners and the tough conditions in which they studied moved us. The interact club then decided to take up a project to renovate this school.
An initial survey was conducted by our school maintenance team to understand the requirements and a budget was drawn out. The Interact club with the support of student community and parents conducted a series of fund raisers at school and managed to raise a significant amount of Rs. 2.50 lacs which was donated to the school authorities for renovation. With the sum collected, the painting of walls was carried out, electrical work completed and basic furniture installed.

Further to this, the students of Interact club also decided to paint the interior walls of the school based on educational themes to improve the ambience of the school and improve the learning environment for the students. The design of walls was carefully planned out by the students. A group of 9 students took up this as a CAS project. We were divided into groups of 3 and each group took responsibility to paint a room. The team was formed in collaboration with students of Sai Bal Sansar who also participated in all stages of planning, layout design and finally the painting of the interior wall. The entire task from planning to completion of painting work took us nearly 4 months.

This was an exhilarating and altruistic activity. At the same time interaction with the students of Sai Bal Sansar School helped develop a deep sense of bonding with them. Working with enamel and spray paints and exploring our skills at art was true fun. When we finally saw the walls take shape, it was a fulfilling experience.  Our efforts at adding colour to the walls, had indeed borne fruit. On May 8th, 2015, the school was formally handed over to the Principal of Sai Bal Sansaar school by Dr. Advani and Mr. Abraham in the presence of our students and students of Sai Bal Sansar.

We hope this small effort on our pat will help the students of Sai Bal Sansar avail a better learning environment.