"Best Out of Waste" Competition Instills Creative and Environmental Consciousness In 40 Children

In today's society, accumulating waste has become a serious environmental threat.  One way to solve this problem is to find new uses for old waste.  This approach, however, requires creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.  BVBCET LEADer Medha Hege took advantage of her LEAD platform to instill this creative, and necessary, mindset within young children.  She visited Seva Student Home for Boys and conducted a competition among the children for creating "best out of waste", eco-friendly models.  40 boys participated in the competition.

Project: Essay Competition

Pushpa (GMIT College)

Pushpa conducted an essay competition at her college.  One week of rigorous planning and coordination with the college Principal and HOD was required to execute the event.  The event attracted seven participants, and each participant was given a memento.  Mr. Arun Kumar (Faculty member of EC Department) inaugurated the event and Mrs. Deepashree Ram Mohan gave a brief introduction about LEAD.  After the essay competition, the best writers were awarded. 

LEAD has helped Pushpa improve and personally develop in many ways.  Since joining LEAD, Pushpa's English speaking skills have improved, and she is not involved in various extracurricular activities.  For her personal improvements, Pushpa has been awarded the "Best Leader" award. 

Pusha says that her participation in LEAD will help her "feel confidence in facing new challenges in the future."

Project: Improving the Skills of Rural Students

Vijayalaxmi (SKSVMACET)

Rural children often do not receive much exposure to societal issues and other forms of creative expression.  Vijayalaxmi conducted a a camp for rural children in Ranebennur.  During the camp, she exposed the children to a variety of activities to help them become more aware of the world around them and to help them achieve their own potential.  Among the many activities she led, Vijayalaxmi taught the students about the importance of higher education, awareness about food wastage, awareness about pollution, how to improve creativity, and teamwork and time management.

Project: Two-Day Camp for Rural Kids

Kavya (SKSVMACET)

Rural children often do not receive much exposure to societal issues and other forms of creative expression.  Kavya conducted a two-day camp for rural children in Bommanahalli.  During the camp, she exposed the children to a variety of activities to help them become more aware of the world around them and to help them achieve their own potential..  Among the many activities she led, Kavya taught the students about the importance of higher education, awareness about food wastage, awareness about pollution, an introduction about LEAD, tricky mind games, ad making, dance and skit performances. 

Project: LEAD Library

Santosh G Katral (KLECET)

The village of Honwad did not have a decent library.  Santosh wanted to create a library for the villagers, particularly the students, to enhance creativity, education, and provide them a place to study.

Construction of the library started with making a list of requirements and collecting the necessary materials.  Santosh and his team approached Shrikant Talakeri, Uttam Katral, Gopal Katral, Anil Natikar, and Prashant Uttare and collected over 400 study materials such as textbooks, exam books, notes, quote books, storybooks, and magazines.  Prashant Talakeri, the President of the library, provided space for the library without requiring any rent.  Santosh and his team then appointed people for the management positions of the LEAD Library.

The LEAD Library has been very helpful to villagers and students alike in Honwad.  Santosh says that the most important lesson he learned from this is that "when major problems arise, we should try to do something different than others."

Project: Drawing Competition for School Students

Wilson A. Michael (SJPN Trust's Polytechnic, NDS)

Wilson took initiative to provide students with a platform for them to think and express themselves creatively.  He conducted a drawing competition at Muraraji Desai School, NDS to give students this opportunity.  After getting permission from the school principal, Wilson conducted a one-day drawing competition at the school.  Through the competition, the students were able to explore their latent artistic creativity and learn new art forms.

Project: Teaching Creativity to Orphaned Children

Priyanka Chaugule

Priyanka wanted to help orphaned children build up their self-confidence because she felt that orphaned children are oftentimes forgotten in society.  So, she and her team members approached the principal of an orphanage school  to get permission to conduct creativity lessons for the orphan students. 

Through the creativity lessons, the students were given the chance to showcase their talents and strengths while expressing their emotions.  Priyanka commented that the most challenging aspects of the project were getting permission from the college Principal and staff, and managing the students. However, Priyanka is very happy that she "[fought] for what she wanted" and that she was able to provide memorable experiences for the children. 

Project: Sapathrang

Alisha A Shiledar (KLECET)

Alisha believes that "All children are born with talent, but they can only shine if we help and guide them." Alisha noticed that government school children have a lot of talent, but do not ahve the opportunity to showcase their talents.  Alisha wanted to give these students the opportunity to explore their talents, lift their spirits, and encourage them to face their fears. 

While the government school children attended weekly art classes, the class structure consisted of simply copying drawings from the teacher.  Alisha wanted the children to generate their own ideas and create art from those ideas. To accomplish this, Alisha and her team  conducted a two-day art competition for the children.  The competition was comprised of drawing, painting, model making, acting, and singing. 

Project: Navachaitanya

Anuradha Bandari (Govt First Grade College, Sirsi)

Anuradha taught children in Bommanalli about healthy, extracurricular practices such as yoga, singing, drawing, and more.  20 children learned, and therefore benefitted, from Anuradha's teachings.  The children continue to practice these healthy activities. 

Project: Camp for Rural Kids

Karthik Hunagund (REC Hulkoti)

Karthik visited a school in a village where many students showed creative potential, but unfortunately did not have the platform to showcase their creativity.  As a solution to this problem, Karthik thought to conduct a camp where he could give the children lessons in dance, yoga, painting, and other creative activities.  With the help of the Chalukya Foundation, Karthik conducted a camp in the village of Bandigwad.  Out of the 100 students that participated, 10 students received scholarships and/or sponsorships to complete their education.  News of the success of Karthik’s camp reached other villages, and they are asking Karthik to lead camps in their villages.  Karthik’s project cost a total of Rs. 1730, but the experience that these students gained is invaluable. 

Project :Drawing and Speech Competition

 LEADer: Maithri Mahesh
Location: Guddal village, Davangere

LEADer Maithri Mahesh conducted a drawing and speech competition in the government school in Guddal village. This was a platform for students to exhibit their creative ability. As per teachers say, students have a lack of exposure. When the LEADer approached for the first time, none of the students responded. So it was a challenging thing for Maithri to give them exposure. She eventually succeeded and the headmistress selected the best participants and awarded them with prizes.

Project: Inchara

LEADer: Ajay Kumar

College: MSW Dept, Davangere University

Inchara is a 3-day residential workshop for deaf and dumb people, executed on 5th Dec to 8th Dec in Belavanur in coordination with the Association of People with Disability. It mainly focused on sign language, advocacy, hidden creativity among them, ill effects of tobacco consummation and cancer, adolescent health, insight about government schemes, and disabled rights. In this camp more than 200 students participated and were benefitted.

Project: Idea Presenting Competition

LEADer: Shamanth

College: GMIT College, Davangere

LEADer Shamanth, student of GMIT College, organized an idea presenting competition in GMIT college, Davangere campus, for the first time. He gave an opportunity for students to think out of the box. Five teams actively participated. The students' innovative ideas were very much practical and creative. The teaching staff appreciated the efforts made by students. LEADer Shamanth was successful in building skills for engineering students. This project helped the budding engineers to develop soft skills. The GMIT team wishes many more projects to come up.

Project: Talents In You

LEADer: Vini J. Kadam   

College: KLECET

Vini took this project because all the students from the government schools cannot take up medical or engineering etc. as their careers. She took up this project in order to make the students aware of their talents like singing, drawing, monoacting etc. Hopefully, in the future they can take up any talents. The challenges which Vini faced during the execution of project was convincing the principal about the project and conducting the three competitions in one day with limited durations. By this Vini learnt how to manage time and to take the right decisions at right time.

Project: Kannada Poem Writing Competition

LEADer Harsha

Location: Davangere

Harsha, a LEADer of BIET conducted a Kannada poem writing competition for students in Davangere. In this 21^st century the mother tongue of Kannada language is losing the value from lack of usage. Noticing this, students were given an opportunity to explore their Kannada poem writing skills. It was  an initiation to give importance to Kannada literature. Students framed poems rhythmically which let to creative thinking. 

One day creativity workshop in Davangere

The creativity is within you... Looking differently is creativity...Doing something new is creativity...Exposing what is within you is creativity so this workshop was organized for all LEAD Leaders on 30th Sept 2012 in LEAD office, Davangere.

Creativity costs nothing, it fetches you a lot, your future will be smart, you get easily what others cannot. These are the find outs from our leaders

Radha Krishna, Senior Program Manager took the crowd to the world of creativity. The workshop was based on fun come learning. Leaders from 11 different colleges joined as petals to make the flower of creativity and 3 Program Managers as sepals to make a flower more beautiful.

One day was a sunday .That day was a fruitful day and creativity day.

70 + students participated and added the beauty of office wall with posters. Workshop started by 12'0 clock and ended by 5pm in the evening. Students actively participated and showed interest for all further events.