Press Coverage

Joy for Kids - DNA, October 6, 2009

An audacious, ambitious celebration of giving - The Morung Express, July 18, 2009

An audacious, ambitious celebration of giving

Moasenla Jamir

Children create the first child-friendly zebra crossing in
Ahmedabad. With aProCh, the busiest streets in the city of Ahmedabad
are closed to traffic once a month and converted into a place for
children. (Source: www.aproch.org <http://www.aproch.org> )

It may be time to change our perception of children as helpless and
incapable of initiating change – a simple word, and yet one so
profound. Inspired by the Mahatma’s statement, “Be the change you want
to see in the world,” an idea in the shape of a ‘Design for Giving’
contest has been planted to enable school going children to believe in
themselves as agents of change.
Promoted by The Riverside School, Ahmedabad, the Design for Giving
contest is part of the Joy of Giving week, an initiative of the
GiveIndia Foundation To be held from September 27 to October 3, the
Week is the first of its kind in India and an ambitious social movement
that aims to engage two crore Indians to give.
So does that mean people aren’t giving enough? On the contrary, says
Kiran Bir Sethi, Founder/Director of The Riverside School, in
conversation with The Morung Express, “We have a great tradition of
giving. And the whole idea of the contest was to bring it as a festival
– a celebration!”
“This is an open, audacious, ambitious celebration of giving. Some
people don’t like to talk about it; some talk about it. We say ‘don’t
be shy about it; let’s be open about it!’” enthuses Kiran, who hopes
this very festival of giving becomes part of the Indian tradition. With
enthusiastic response pouring in from “over 30,000 schools
participating from 11 states”, the contest has now been made more
flexible in terms of the age of students, but on one condition: “Do not
let the teachers drive the project; let them just guide it.”
Rallying behind the organisers with expert opinion and help in this
mammoth task are a team of well-known organisations and institutions –
NID Ahmedabad, IDEO, and Institute of Design at Stanford as the
knowledge partners, independent design experts, besides the student
body of The Riverside School. Gray Matters Capital has also given a
grant towards supporting the affordable private schools (APS) so that
all schools manage to participate. Besides, there are the contest’s
anchors, independent organisations representing their states and
cities, who garner support from other organisations to ensure maximum
participation in their respective states.
Continued on page 5
Also providing media support is CNN-IBN and Disney, while
actor/activist Rahul Bose has been roped in as the brand ambassador for
the contest. In addition, Pratham Books (www.prathambooks.org <http://www.prathambooks.org>
) will publish the selected stories of change into a series of books
that will be translated into 7 languages And “that’s why we
specifically want stories from Nagaland,” says Kiran, who has never
been to the Northeast but hopes to visit some day.
“It’s not for the lack of implementation that ideas like these don’t
see the light of day,” says Kiran, an NID graduate, while referring to
aProCh – a Protagonist in every Child – for which she was awarded the
Ashoka Fellowship 2008. “Very often, we just don’t know what to do,”
she says, explaining, “aProCh is an idea that’s gone to several cities
now because it’s replicable. We don’t need any great financial support
to replicate an idea like this.”
With aProCh, the city of Ahmedabad has become more child-friendly. For
the second year running, the busiest streets in the city are closed
down to traffic once a month and converted into a place for children.
Activities for children are held on the streets and involve street
plays, painting competitions, dance and music, among others.
We need to continue to invest in our children to have the ability to
‘be the change’ and to get as many people to believe that the children
can, says Kiran, adding that the ‘Design for Giving’ contest can be a
great start, but that it mustn’t end there.