Our story of Change fromWESTWOOD SCHOOL, TENALI.

Yogya, Andhra Bharathi , Aman, Shruthi, Teja, Sravya, Moneesha, Jai Surya

Mentor Teachers : Mr. Shiva Naga Prasad,Ms. Naga Lakshmi

We from Grade VI and VII had a brain storming session and felt that we need to do something for the children of our age group who were neglected.

We have done a survey in and around our town Tenali.

We found children in slum area near a school in very bad condition and not going to school.

They are left on the road during the day when their parents go to the work.

We also identified a school called NICE run for orphans who are in need of emotional help and support in co scholastic areas.

We thought of grade VII working for literacy drive for slum children .

We planned to motivate the parents of slum children to join them in government school.

We also decided to spend considerable amount of time with them as they might not agree in the first meet.

Grade VI group planned to visit NICE school again and spent time with those kids teaching them Dance, Music and Yoga as they are craving for relaxation activities.

We visited the slum area during the parents are available and interacted with them. They were hesitated and did not accept our proposal of joining their kids on the first day.

On the second day we motivated them by speaking to them about the importance of education and at last convinced them to join their kids in school.

We spent qualitative time with the kids and had lunch together.

We taught them 2 light Music songs

We realized that how blessed are we to have our parents who could fulfill all our needs and give a comfortable life and started giving more respect to our parents and obeying them in a better way than earlier.

We have learnt how to cooperate with in the group and the importance of team work to achieve a difficult task like convincing the elders to put their kids in hostel.

We understood the importance of holistic education that we are getting when the children of NICE School were very happy and relaxed after our support in co scholastic areas.

We have understood the real meaning of joy of giving and service and felt happy that our project title – “Hand in hand ,light in eyes and joy in hearts” is apt for what we have done.

It is a great pleasure to share that the parents feed back about the story of change project is wonderful. They could see the change in their own kids by the end of the projects.

This story continues as we are going to keep a track of slum children and also have tie up with nice school to support them in co scholastic areas in future too.

It was a beautiful journey which has taught our students that the happiness we get in giving is much more than what we get in receiving.

Jyothi Reddy