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Responsible young force

Project Citizen, a project to promote responsible citizens, saw school kids come up trumps

ACTION DRIVEN Students participating in Project Citizen were full of hope, dreams and aspiration

`Project Citizen' held recently at Chinmaya Vidyalya, Vaduthala, saw school kids don the mantle of responsible and sensitive future citizens of the country.

For every young participant's conviction in making this world a better place was proved beyond doubt.

`We, the people, Project Citizen' is a project targeting young people and it aims at promoting competent and responsible participation in local and state government. It began in Pennsylvania about two decades ago and it is now being implemented in 58 countries with more than 30 million students as participants.

Meera Balachandran, Principal of the Sahodaya Group of schools, New Delhi, and also the director of Project Citizen India said, "We introduced this program in our country in 2005 and started with a humble beginning of 11 schools.Today, India is proud to have students participating from 191 schools from across the country." G. Balasubramian, Director, CBSE board, told the young audience, "When you children grow up to be conscious and committed citizens, only then the purpose of your education is achieved."

Five different schools from in and around Kochi participated in the presentation.

Judges who presided and evaluated the projects were Dr. Philip John, a child psychiatrist and Suchitra Narayanan, faculty at Shristi school of Art and at the art and design division of Wipro Teachers Foundation. Also invited was the District Collector whose presence would have made a tremendous difference on an occasion where 14-year-olds took charge of the problems faced by the citizens of Kochi.

Cochin Refinery School and Bhavans Vidya Mandir, chose to address the traffic problem in the city, the Choice School chose to study the garbage menace while the Delta School presented a case on preservation of heritage. The host school, Chinmaya Vidyalya presented a project on the differently- abled people of our society.

Outstanding team

The Delta team was awarded the most Outstanding Team. One of the students from the winning team enthusiastically told the audience "In the beginning this was just a school project for us, but as we worked more and more towards the solution, we realised we had learnt so many things. Simple things like interacting with strangers, interviewing them, time management and concise writing among many others"

When the team was told, by several people they interacted during the project "this is India we cannot change anything", the children said they went back thinking, `We want to make an India we are proud of"

With articulate presentation of well-studied policies and acts and the diligence to put together a practical action plan, this exercise has sure laid the foundation for sensitive and productively responsible citizens of tomorrow.

A common observation among all the teams was: we need to start with ourselves. The Choice School with the `reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink' slogan has declared their school a plastic free zone. They have also got a capsule lift sanctioned from their principal so that special children can study along with them.

Inspiring stories

Inspiring stories from other cities include that of a school in Bangalore where they took up health care of a slum. Another team in Chandigarh took up a grave issue like infanticide and another in Delhi of AIDS awareness. "Children of the Project citizen throughout the country have been creating quite a stir, slowly and steadily. A leading producer from Hollywood will soon be shooting in India, having taken India as a model for the rest of the world," adds a proud Meera Balachandran.

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Operation: Project Citizen

This is how Project Citizen operated. Students were given a time frame of 30 days to identify a problem in their community.

They worked collectively in groups and took up different responsibilities. This included a thorough study of the problem, factors contributing to it and arriving at a practical solution.

In the process they also had to study the existing laws and policies pertaining to the problem at hand, approach local authorities and political figures to arrive at a solution in the form of a policy.

DIPTI DESAI

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