~Pankhudi Allahabad

Well it is with great delight we wish to say that the Allahabad Team indeed made the 18th of April 2007 i.e Pankhudi’s Birth Anniversary a real special day.

The students who come under tha Protsahan program(rural literacy) were allowed to enter the IIIT Allahabad campus for a small tour.

The kids were first taken to a small garden, then to the lecture rooms where they were overjoyed to see and feel the atmosphere in which we study. They also checked out the lab computers with great awe. Later they were taken to the college library wherein they got so see hundreds and hundreds of books. Roaming around the clean and green campus was indeed like a picninc to them.

Finally we took them to the faculty house that is Mrs. Padma Mam’s house where there was a fun interactive session.Many children recited poems, songs. Even Prof U.S. Tiwary( Dean, Academic Affairs) also presentedthe students with a motivating songs. At the end , ice creams and fruits were distributed among the children before bidding their good byes to the college campus.

All in all it was a very enjoyable day for the children as well as the volunteers… Pankhudi Didi will indeed hold special place in their hearts forever!!!

Regards

Arti Chhajta

Team Allahabad

On the 19th of March, we made our first visit to Sahyog after the vacations. The members who visited were: Ishant, Chandrashekhar Meena, Vipin, Shruti, Vibhuti and Yanu. It was like a revision session wherein the girls just brushed up whatever had been taught to them previously. Basics like handling folders, opening files and packages like MS Office were revised. Some the the main and handy aspects of MS Word, Paint, Excel etc have been taught to them and an effort is being made to make them completely comfortable and good at handling them. The queries and doubts of the students there are quite encouraging as it gives an insight into how fast they are picking things and how well they are understanding. As of now, we will continue to teach them the same stuff before getting onto a tougher level. Hope to get in some ideas on what to teach next once we finish with the basics

Arti Chhajta

~Pankhudi Allahabad

On 5^th February 2007 we made a visit to Sahyog . We just carried on the momentum , teaching the girls there the various functionalities of a computer. We covered lessons on MS Word, MS Excel, Paint and the general use of computer for entertainment etc. Lessons on the hardware of a system were also taken.

What was delightful to see was the interest that all of them have to learn and practice. Soon they will be handed over  their CPU (which has currently gone for repairing) and that will help them to practice and retain whatever we teach them. Many of them have have picked up MS Word and Paint very well.

Next visit , we would like to teach them in more depth as far as MS Office is concerned. All in all, this initiative to introduce them to computer is really turning out to be a success.

Regards

Arti Chhajta

~Pankhudi Allahabad

On the 26^th of January, 2007 the students of Protsahan were taken to Kendriya Vidyalaya, Jhalwa, Allahabad  to witness the Republic Day celebrations.The chief guest  for the event was Dr. U.S. Tiwary (Dean - Academic Affairs,IIITA).

The students of KV presented the audiences with various performances. There was a patriotic group song, drill presented by the scouts, a speech on the importance of the Republic Day and to top it all a Punjabi folk dance performed by the girls. The students of Protsahan had a wonderful time, got a lot to learn about the significance of the Republic Day.

At the end , Hima Bindu ma’am distributed sweets among the children and had a fun session asking them what had they finally learned about the Republic Day of India. It was an attempt on our part to educate the children about their country’s glorious history! All in all it was an enjoyable learning experience for the kids!

Regards

Arti Chhajta

~Pankhudi

Team Allahabad

Well here comes New Year and new zeal to make a difference in people’s lives… this is what we have been doing so far and pledge to continue this endeavour!

The literacy program (Protsahan) was functional throughout the vacations with just a one week gap in between. The classes resumed in full flow from 28^th December 2006. The program has indeed gained momentum and every other day we have requests for new admissions.

It was decided to visit Sahyog and MoC this week and plan was to have a small “New Year celebration “sort of a thing but unfortunately that could not materialize because of the unavailability of conveyance. The visits will be rescheduled for next week.

There are some new ideas that we’ll be working on shortly :

1. In order to accommodate new batch of students, a parallel session of “Protsahan” will be conducted.

2.Attempt to provide computer education to girls at Sahyog. Also use of computers will be started to teach students at “Protsahan” ( bi weekly).

3.We would also like to promote Pankhudi in other colleges thereby spreading the wings of Pankhudi far and wide!

There are number of other projects , but need some time to analyse them before taking them up.

So that’s it for now.

Regards

Arti Chhajta

~Pankhudi

Team Allahabad

And yes it was a success… It was really a complacent feeling watching kids expressing mirth. The program started with a brief intro of Children’s Day by me. Then Padma Ma’am took the command and explaind the details of Children’s Day and Chacha Nehru.
The event proceeded with fun games as lemon spoon race, sack race, banana race, three leg race. We also had a special game in which each student at ~prayaas was paired with a faculty of IIITA. The co ordination was a fun to watch.

Also present were Bindu Ma’m, Shweta Ma’am, Soma Ma’am and Krishna Ma’am.
A lemon race round of the volunteers enkindled their childhood. We planned games for volunteers to but had to cut them short because of paucity of time.

After this fun surfeited session, magic show by Magician Ravindra Kumar was waiting for them. The sorcerous seeming tricks augmented by jokes made this experience memorable for the kids.

The event was followed by prize distribution to the winners and then choclates, biscuits and other refreshments were distributed amongst kids.

We extend our thanks to Ratnesh for organising refreshments and all the staff members for taking out time from their busy schedules.

The pics of the event can be seen at http://in.pg.photos.yahoo.com/~puneet.vijay84

Happy Children’s Day to everyone in parivaar

Regards,
Team Allahabad

Its the festive season, which means fun time especially for kids! Thus, we decided to celebrate with the tiny tots who have been our students for quite sometime now at Prayaas. All of them came well dressed for the occasion.

Padma ma’am and Bindu ma’am were also present. Among the Pankhudi members Shubham, Siddharth, Neerav, Abhinav, Ajay, Vipin, Arti were present for the celebration. Padma ma’am started off with a brief introduction to various festivals celebrated all over India. Some of the students enthusiastically volunteered to narrate poems and stories thus adding to the festive mood and the spirit of youth.New notebooks and workbooks were also bought for the students.Then sweets were distributed among all the children which they relished!!!

 The classroom session was followed by firing of crackers. The kids enjoyed a lot. Finally chocolates were distributed among all of them. All of us indeed had a blast! There couldn’t have been a better diwali gift than the beautiful smile on each and every kids face!!!!

Regards 
Arti

Festivity is in the air…On the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti and Dussera,~Team Allahabad celebrated spirits of this festive season with the students enrolled with ~Prayaas.
We had Mrs. Padma Singh and Mrs Hima Bindu with us to have an interactive session with kids, listen to their problems, motivate them and insinuate some moral thoughts in their adoloscent minds. Mrs. Padma told about Dussera and presented the idea of triumph of good on evil. She also briefed about Gandhi ji and three monkeys.
The session was followed up by the movie ‘Iqbal’. In the end, choclates and biscuits were arranged for the kids by Bindu ma’am.

The pics can be viewed at http://pankhudi-india.org/photos/allahabad/

andheri zindgiyo me laayein thodi si ujaas
sapno ka har koi kar paaye abhaas
sakharta ka prakash failane ki koshish
kuch khushiyan baatne ka yeh hai chota sa ~Prayaas

Team Allahabad launched its literacy campaign ~Prayaas today in premises Kendriya Vidyalaya, IIITA. Though the function was supposed to be inaugrated by our Dean Hon’ble Dr. G.C.Nandi. We had our seniors faculty members and Admin staff to support us. We had our Assistant Registrar Mr. Ashish Kumar, Finance Officer Mr. V.B. Singh, Prof. M Radhakrishna, Mr. U.S.Tiwari, Mrs. Padma Singh, Dr. Deepti Bhatnagar and Shri R.N.Yadav(Principal, Kendria Vidyalaya)

The news of the start of a literacy campaign got spread like fire, and we were shocked to see arnd 60 children at the event site. As we were not ready with arrangements for so many kids, we had to ask some of them to come tommorow. After a brief introduction of ~Prayaas by me, we had the lamp lighting ceremony signifying the start of the campaign. I am thankful to Suchithra (vocals) and Siddharth (Tabla) from IIITA as they spared their time to present Saraswati Vandana. Our Dean, Nandi Sir cut ribbon of the classroom. The staff encouraged us by ensuring us to provide all kind of support. We had few words of wisdom by Nandi Sir, Padma Ma’m. The volunteers and guests distributed biscuits and slates to kids. It was really touching to see Nandi sir writing the name of li’l girl Alka on her slate. Even Vivek from team expressed himself.

Deepti ma’am and USt sir really enthused everyone by singing “Hum honge kamyaab..”. The program was concluded by vote of thanks by me.
I must thank MRK sir who donated funds for books and other stationery expenses.
Refreshments were organised by the team for guests. Afer the event, team spent around 1 hour interacting with kids.
The event was a great success and i am sure the campaign will be a greater success. I am really so thrilled right now…
There are a lot many ppl to thank, I know i can’t thank everyone here in the mail, but still it isnt possible to mention all the names here.

The pics will be uploaded very soon at the ~Pankhudi gallery. The video will be uploaded at Goggle videos.

Three cheers Team Allahabad!!

Cheers
Puneet

~Team Pankhudi, Allahabad had a visit to MoC today. The visit was intended to include new members in our ongoing work, so majority of the people were with the team for the first time, and I’m quite sure they loved it!!! Team members were Megha, Sruthi, Neha, Zeba, Yanu, Deepika, Deepali, Vinod, Ajay, Ishant, Vipin, Pranay, Ankur and yours truly.

The kids were bit reluctant to talk but we had chocolates to make them come near to us.The new members managed to mix themselves with kids in just a couple of minutes. We had chitchat and confabbing for a long time, and we played with them RingARoses, poshampa , chidiya ud and peekaboo Very casually we tried to teach them general awareness things and moral issues.

The team size is now somewhat around 45. On the teaching campaign front, i expect to meet director sir next week. Let’s hope something positive.

On behalf of ~Pankhudi Parivaar, I am thankful to new members for supporting this noble endeavour and i welcome them in the family. Three cheers Team Allahabad 

Puneet
For ~Team Pankhudi Allahabad