2. An initiative by Anando’s children for The Design For Change Contest 2011
3. For our team, this was the first time that we were working independently on a project. We were quite unsure about what we could do….until Baby suggested : Lets stick to what we know…then we won’t feel so lost! AMRITA DEEPA Our group with our helpers FEEL GARGI BABY SHIBANI
4. IMAGINE Remember how we learnt book binding last year.? We made so many exercise books for ourselves…it was most useful! GARGI And we could give them to the Class 1 students in my old school…we always need exercise books and our parents cant afford that many! AMRITA We could also give them our old crayons from Anando….we have more than enough to share. SHIBANI
5. And so we got down to it….first we contacted all our friends and neighbours and collected paper from old exercise books from them. DO
6. Then we sorted the papers out into bunches of 20 pages. We had 25 sets in all .Each set will become an exercise book.
7. We cut the paper evenly and to the size of the exercise books we wanted. Our teacher helped us to make the holes for binding.
8. We then sewed the pages together . Our books were now ready for the next stage….
9. The uneven sides of the exercise books had to be cut neatly on a big cutting machine! The local market had one …so that’s where we went.
10. A last bit of decorating and……….. …our books were FINISHED!
11. For the next part of our project we made little pouches using scrap cloth.
12. We filled the bags with all the extra crayons at our centre
14. On the last school day before the puja holidays we all gathered at SikshaSadan, a government aided primary school , in our locality. Mr. Tiwari the principal introduced us to the Class 1 students. Then Amrita spoke to them about our project.
15. It was fun to see all the excited faces as we gave out the gifts to all the children !
17. SOME HURDLES We did not think anyone would give us their scrap paper. But after a slow start, we were surprised at how helpful everyone was . Help came from the most unexpected places! Some people were suspicious of our motives and accused us of collecting the paper for our own gain! But we were able to explain our project and change the minds of those who doubted us.
18. WE LEARNT… We need not think very big to make a change…using what we already have can go a long way in making a difference. Hurdles can be overcome reasonably. There are many who will support you if you are sincere WE CAN …if we want to !
19. Useful: We know the children will love scribbling in these books. From our own experience we know that paper for scribbling and drawing on is always in short supply. WEFELT… Proud: It felt good to have the principal himself congratulating us and telling us to continue the good work! Overwhelmed : The excitement when we were giving out the gifts was…well, exciting! We had not thought that our simple project could bring so many smiles to these little faces…
20. Yes! Its definitely more fun to share with everyone!!
