Voluntear the mask- Feb 2014 Answers
Answers to Voluntear the mask- Feb 2014
#1:Dhinesh,Trichy
#2: Aashish,Chennai
#3: Bharath,Bangalore
Tag: Ripples February 2014
Secretly Sneaking to Surprise our Santa
It was just another simple festive holiday at 6a.m. on 25th December. Then a series of decisions led me to leave to Bhumi office in Chennai where a secret Santa event and the Christmas celebrations were planned. Being a sophomore with the routes in Chennai I was offered a ride from t-nagar to the office by gana Anna. On entering along (4 people waiting with a few stuff) with our inventories; we were on the plan mode to choose our ultimate destination to decorate; and finally we found a tree (a real one compared to the fake one we had) and made it a Christmas tree by showcasing all that we knew under the name “Decorations”. Then not to miss out the pic with a tag for fb 😛 “Decoration team” by sangeetha akka . Then slowly volunteers joined us at something around 11 am sharply since the event was scheduled at 10a.m. . . . 😛 The important entry took place around 11.15a.m (no not a person; the pani; masala and pooris for the pani-pooris made its way) to the terrace. Then on seeing it we developed the taste to start the event by starting to distribute the gifts between the Chris child and Chris mom (the terminologies were explained by our birthday baby to us.)
Oh yeah that day was also the beautiful birthday of the charming queen of Lakshya our ambee akka. She came in with a Cam with memory and left with a creamed face and pics of memories. (Rhyme doesn’t always work out :P). yet she was such a sport.
So if you are asking me what was the surprise that was blown out in fb? for the whole day; yeah it is the secret b’day blast for our charm queen.
Then we engaged ourselves in the tummy filling process with matpal taking the job of filling in our pani- pooris that day. Well there is a confession I wanna make about the event; I think this is the right place; I got to know the names of people there and their faces but the thing I missed out there was to match them correctly in my memory. So even after these days if people reach out to me in fb I find it a bit non-Sync to respond 😉 yet I manage :p
As you know it’s me so I manage by confusing people listening to me. And the invention of the day was a Cad-bury gem Pani Poori. Trust me that was the reaction we gave on hearing the name initially then we trusted somehow on sukash Anna’s (a guess again) idea and tried it. It really came out well.
OK for people thinking why is the title having a sneaking in it (well I sneaked in the event unannounced …). I know it doesn’t fit in ; how about me sneaking a max no. of chocolates that day (can’t you believe it? ) ; yeah I did just people didn’t notice 😛 .I can also proudly say that was because I was the youngest kid that day so they let me. Whatever it is just the alliteration I used it in the title for :P.
And since I had a train to catch I left; missing out the hike for rest of the day but fb kept me intact with the proceedings on the way. It was thus a great day spent knowing people and having ultimate fun with them (But remembrance alone has a small bug.)
-Harish, Trichy
Republic day celebrations
Lakshya’s Republic Day Meet
It was an energy-filled day with chit-chats, lunch together and thought provoking discussions, debates and quiz competition!!
About 20 Passionate Lakshya volunteers participated in the event. It was a fashionably late Start with a long-awaited lunch but the lunch together with volunteers was fun. The wait was worth a mouth-watering Punjabi lunch; and the highlight were those hot jilebis, lassi and beedas. Republic day was such a fun filled experience to know more about history, a few personalities and must-know info about Indian history and legends through quiz competitions, which was even more fun when participants caught the
hosts for pairing wrong answers & questions 😉 A Comedy of errors was celebrated by all.
Participants picked up an unusual and interesting debate on “India – A Country or A Concept”. Meeting was made more eventful by then. And to watch fellow Lakshyans pitch in about our country’s pride and greatness amongst some thought provoking questions and answers was awesome. Counter attacks were made on topics ranging from ancient government to modern history-growth. Not just knowledge sharing but truly a learning moment as well. Way to go people!!
Finally, it was about Lakshya and Lakshyans!
Yes, it was interesting to watch Lakshyans plan on an enhancing mentoring through career guidance. Some food for thought, high voltage passion and electrifying suggestions, Lakshya has it all-anytime.
In short, Lakshya Rocks!!!
-Prasanna Kumar, Chennai
Mentoring Feedback session
The session on 19-1-2014 was visited by saras mam , initially we all volunteers were nervous about an elderly person visiting us and kind of watching us throughout the session .But the way she started interacting with our volunteers and asked us about our session plan and suggested slight changes was commendable and simply superb. The feedback session in Haji Ali started off with positive note from Saras mam. She applauded the efforts of volunteers and even made a mention of a few particular efforts. She could understand the issues and challenges faced by the mentors. After the feedback; a broader perspective was made on mentoring and she also reminded us that the results will not be seen immediately. She also felt the need to have a motivation session for kids and a session for a few sensitive kids to deal with the issues faced by them in a better way, and conveyed the same to us (volunteers)!
Her presence was morally boosting for the volunteers .It was also a reassuring that we are on the right path!
The feedback session also motivated us that we are doing a good job yet we need to improve in it. The session ended on a happy note with many things to learn, life is all about learning, life ends when learning ends.
– Mathpal Singh, Chennai
Sessions – on a serious note
I can’t believe we had a wonderful session only last week, am still not over it, and I am able to write about it now after 3 days! (Sent to ripples on 15th Jan…) It all started with a con-call between me, Lakshmi and Mathpal, we were deeply saddened with the state the 10th standard students are dealing with their board exams. So we decided to go with a serious session, on goal setting and why? We felt our job was to make them realize, it is important to have goals and the rest will be taken care of! We braced ourselves to have a serious session apart from the regular fun filled session which we usually have, Mathpal came up with a wonderful skit, it played an important part in making the purpose of reaching the students! And we decided that we are just gonna talk our heart out after the skit, I must say though we were skeptical about the plan, we must have been so sure somewhere, that we dint even consider a backup plan! So on the day , we had few more volunteers, who readily consented to the idea, we did planned, the students in their usual fun mood made candid comments on what character they choose to be from the skit ! And then the kids knew about the session being a serious one, they were all ears at once with no sign of disinterest, each volunteer spoke about the importance of goals from their perspective quoting many real life examples and when we thought we were done with the session, that was not all.. We saw the unexpected coming! While we were ready for the comments from the students, majorly their dislikes, we saw the students breaking down in front of us, we felt the students really want to make it and do better and many even shared the problems in studies they face!
-Herunmayee Ravi, Chennai
Last session was one of the beautiful sessions ever in BM!
It started with a skit which displayed the characters of common people with no clear goals. And then we sat with the kids and started telling them about that day’s specialty (swami Vivekananda’s birthday).
“Arise awake stop not till the goal is reached”
And then we spoke to them about the importance of having goals in life and had one to one interaction whether goal is important or not! The kids responded well and the kids who were in an unclear mind were listening carefully!
Then Herun started about the importance of 10th std and the effect of it in future life. How our perspective towards studying should change. How short term goals should be linked to long term goals! We appreciated the kids on their positives and mentioned about the things that needs to be improved! It went on like a serious discussion and lead to an emotional end!
The kids were moved by it and reacted that it helped them a lot!
We have to ensure that the fire is still up in their minds about their future!
They will surely come up with their excitement!
It’s the duty of mentors to add fuel to the fire; we created on that day!
–Lakshmi Padmanabhan, Chennai
