Election Advocacy Campaign @ Property Fairs

21st and 22nd Dec 2013, HT organized a Property Fair at Expocenter, Sec-62, Noida, in which almost all renowned builders of NCR showcased their current real estate projects and provided lucrative offers for instant booking. The fair was attended by many people who were mostly adults and suitable target to be made aware of the right of children to be considered in manifestos of political parties for forthcoming Lok Shabha Election 2014. Patrons were made aware of the right through EAC campaign brought to the platform by CRY Volunteers. Approximately 250 patrons supported the cause by signing pledge.

Creative Classes @ Rithala

This is to make you aware of the journey of creative classes at rithala. The classes are conducted at NGO partner 'Saksham' in shahbad dairy, B block under supervision and assistance of centre head Mr Santlal and activist Mrs Maya.

VISION:

The creative classes were in visioned as an out come of SOTY training where we realised the real ingredient missing among the kids was lack of confidence and exposure to things which very naturally is available to privileged kids. So main vision statement for the classes are to bring confidence and all world holistic exposure to these kids through creative, co curricular and unconventional methods.

We aim to provide them with activities apart from normal studies which help a normal kid in personality development.

INGREDIENTS:

LIBRARY - books we believe are a window to the whole world and a child's best exposure to both creative and real world . so we established a small library with help of fellow volunteers and need more books.

BOOK READING SESSIONS- each volunteer helps a kid in reading stories from books we have collected. Helping him/her  with word meanings, comprehension and grammar involved in process. In the end each  kid then   dramatises the whole story in his/her own words with the help of other kids who play the role of different characters of the story. Aim is to improve in English and creative expression of acquired knowledge to other kids.

GAMES AND PUZZLES - scrabble for vocabulary building, colouring exercises to expand creative horizons. Various other such modules we are developing and will implement in coming classes.

DANCE AND MUSIC - we noticed dance and music is the real game changer for the classes and we now often have sessions where kids sing dance and even prepare small musical skits based on local community rituals. One of the volunteers miss kanika has started small dance teaching sessions for kids.

We are developing more creative modules and time to time will keep sharing with you but we would require a lot of input from all of you. Please do help us with your suggestions, teaching modules and resources of all nature

CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION:

We volunteers decided to celebrate christmas with kids at the centre and it was a brilliant experience. There was lots of food,music,games and gifts. We would look forward to have more such celebrations in creative classes and you all are welcome in it. Volunteers of creative classes would like to thank Anita, piyush logani and megha (unfortunately she was not able to make it to final event ) for support and participation in Christmas celebration with us.

Author: Kumar Abhishek

Donate by Simply Tweeting

Micromax has launched a twitter campaign for Christmas, wherein for each tweet on #CANGiftHappiness it would donate Re. 1/- to CRY. Within few hours of its launch, the campaign became one of the top topics on twitter in India. Requesting all readers to tweet on this # and help CRY in its social endeavour (get friends and family also to tweet!). All that you have to do is to log into your twitter account and post tweets with this tag. The message could be just about anything – something that makes you happy, something which you want to do to make others happy, something to do with child rights – anything and everything works! You can do a search on twitter with #CANGiftHappiness to see the kind of stuff people are posting – just in case you need any idea starters.

The more tweets we get in the next 6 days on this – the more funding we get! So please do start tweeting.

The added incentive - you can win a Micromax phone as well, autographed by Hugh Jackman.

Rock for Child Rights

This event, is about bringing music lovers in Delhi together for a two day event when they can enjoy the music that they love and at the same time can do something to ensure lasting change for underprivileged children in India. This event will bring together rock groups from across the country and part proceeds from the sale of tickets will be given to CRY.

This event will also see band members from multiple bands come together to create an “anthem for children”. Children from Music Basti will be sharing the stage along with these musicians to perform this anthem as a grand finale to this two day show.

Date: 7th & 8th December, 2013

Venue: Zorba (next to the Sultanpur Metro Station)

Time: 12 noon – 8 pm on both days.

Vote for Child Rights

Dear Volunteer, The power of a vote - your vote can change the lives of millions for the better. Soon, our country will go to the polls. Shockingly, a whopping one-third of India’s citizens will not have a say in determining who forms our next government. Their basic rights are violated every single day. They have no economic power, no vote and therefore no voice. They are India’s children, and they need us - we who have both a voice and a vote - to speak up for them. Today, 66 years after independence, the situation of the Indian child is a grim one: ·         Every second child in India is malnourished ·         11.8% of children in India are engaged in some form of child labour ·         National Dropout Rate at the Elementary Level is over 40% ·         Nearly 45% of girls get married before the age of eighteen years. This election, CRY - Child Rights and You, as an independent non-government organisation working in the area of child rights for over 33 years, has developed a Child Rights Manifesto. We are urging political parties to focus on the issues affecting the rights of Indian children while fashioning their agendas. Being a people’s movement, we need your support! We urge you to join us in this campaign. Visitwww.cry.org/voteforchildrights and sign your support online. Download the Advocacy Kit and become a 'vote for child rights' campaigner. Put up the poster wherever you can. Tell your friends about this campaign. Your support to CRY will be instrumental in ensuring that children become this nation’s top most priority - a place they rightfully deserve. Let us use this opportunity to work together to make India a better place for our children. In faith and goodwill,

Puja Marwaha, Chief Executive, CRY

Diya Painting Event - Spreading smiles this Diwali

On 27th October 2013, CRY volunteers organised a Diya Painting Event at a government school in Sector-63, Noida. The event involved students of class 4 and class 5 and was focused on honing the creativity in children while having fun in painting Diyas.

Divyanshu, a CRY volunteer who participated in the event, quoted “I had never thought before that Diya Painting can be so engaging, fun filled and fulfilling teamwork”. Children as well as volunteers enjoyed the event a lot and embarked the festive celebration of Diwali.

For more pictures of this event click here.

Let's fill fun in a day of children

19th October 2013, CRY Noida volunteers organized a whole day event in a government school in Sector-12, Noida. The event was sponsored completely by Oracle Volunteers, the CSR wing of Oracle Corporation. Approximately 600 students distributed across class 1 to class 8 were catered to by 28 volunteers. Some of the major activities during the event were:

1. Class 7 and class 8 students were gifted Anglo-Hindi dictionary and taught how to find meanings and use phonetics.
2. Class 5 and class 6 students were gifted Hindi to English translation book and taught some basic lessons of the translation.
3. Class 3 and class 4 students were gifted Activity Book containing lots of puzzles and were taught how to apply logic and reasoning to solve those puzzles.
4. Class 1 and class 2 students were gifted Drawing Book and crayons to make them learn about colors and objects, while having fun of coloring.
5. Class 7 and class 8 students were taught some tricks of Vedic Mathematics to expedite multiplication of numbers. They were also provided tutorials to practice the tricks further.
6. Class 7 and class 8 students were taught Origami and were provided bundles of Origami sheets to practice further at home.
7. Class 6 to class 8 students did theme based painting on Diwali.
8. Students of all classes were given Activity Sheets specific to respective classes. The activity sheets had best in class logical/analytical puzzles corresponding to mental level of respective classes. Students enjoyed working on the problems together, discussing them and establishing consensus on solutions.
9. While having refreshments, children enjoyed comedy and educational movies on big screen.
10. Children also showcased their talent of singing, dancing, etc by performing in front of class.

This was the 3rd year in row when this event titled "Let's fill fun in a day of children" was organized. The children and teachers of the school look forward to the event throughout the year as if it were an annual fest for the school; this motivated volunteers to organize the event around October in all 3 years - 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Volunteers also enjoyed the event a lot. Sachin Sharma (Senior Director - Oracle BPM), who volunteered for the event from Oracle side, quoted "Was good fun, activities this time did generate lot of interest and enthusiasm, keep up the good work!". Nupur Vimal, a CRY volunteer, quoted "A huge heartfelt thank you to Divyanshu and Sushant for organizing these activities and making it memorable for all of us."

For more images click here.