Transform the Lives of Children in Gujarat, India

                On August 19th, 2018 we had our Balsena Election day to elect the new President and Vice President. It was a two day event in which the first day was focused on building the leadership qualities of children. Through Drama children exhibited their understanding on 6 different systems of government like Indirect and Direct Democracy, Monarchy, Dictatorship, Communism and Socicracy. The next day was focussed on election process where the 12 candidates who nominated for the positions gave election pitch for 5 minutes each. This is followed by children among the audience posing different questions to the candidates. The last step of the election process is the voting mechanism where children gave points to the 12 candidates based on their profile. Vadher Karthik has been elected as President and Baraiya Kajal and Vegad Hardik have been elected as Vice President. We had a participation of 50 boys and 45 girls during the election day who represent different committees in their respective area and school points.

               August month also had number of Balmela under the theme of "Fun with Science". Children made small toys to understand the concept of sound, Animal and Science toys were made with paper, and paper craft was done to the understang the idea of "Motion picture". Children have shown great enthusiasm while making the toys and shared their learnings at the end of the Balmela. We have done 4 Balmelas with a participation of 191 boys and 153 girls in the month of August.   

               With the new Council members coming on board,  we had residential camps for Active and Council members on the themes of "Roles and Responsibilities" and "Leadership" in the month of September. One of the activity during the outdoor camp was making things for personal use using paper. Children came out with lot of creative ideas to make useful products. Things like sweater for winter season, hats, watches etc..were made out of paper. We could see lot of collaboration among children while working and a subtle message of reusing discarded paper was built in the process. 

               October month had lot of Balmelas under the themes of "Geography" and "Environment". One of the activity during the Balmela was Gujarat jodo (Joining Gujarat) which is map activity where children first need to place different regions of Gujarat in correct place in the map, identify different districts of Gujarat, and finally colour them. This activity enhances mapping skills and teaching methodology includes cutting, pasting and coloring which makes the activity very interesting to children.