Volunteering at the Blue Cross

Taking Action

I Love Animals!!! And volunteering at the Blue Cross, is just the perfect thing for me!

  I took up the Student programme and am a young friend of the blue cross.

Student Certificate Programme: For Students who care about animals and give  their  service to help. They receive a community service certificate on completion of 20 hrs at the animal shelter. Orientation will be given at shelter.

 Although I haven’t had any formal working experience with animals, I have watched cows and dogs grow and played with them, at our family home. I am also friendly with the dogs in our neighborhood.

 I get along quite well with animals and love them!

 When I heard about the Blue Cross from my brother, I wanted to go too. So when the time for action came, I chose to do this.

First I visited their website.  http://www.bluecrosshyd.in Soon after, I visited the Blue Cross of Hyderabad and got in touch with the education department head  - Ms.Pravalika. I became a member by filling up a few forms and also applied for volunteering. I also read up their rules and criteria.

Oh! And I even have my own Blue Cross of Hyderabad T-Shirt.

 

The next day I started off with my voluntary service at the animal centre. My activity is Puppy Socializing and Grooming.

There are several Mongreal puppies up for adoption. There pens were being cleaned, and they were kept in a seperate room. I played, petted, and took care of them. Then, we shifted them into their own pens. I hope each of them get a good home!

I also got the oppurtunity to see tiny kittens bottle-feeding. They were so small, when I held them, I could feel their bones. Soon, I'll be doing it too.

Today, I learnt how to clean the stray pups and did some puppy socializing.

 I was really happy and pleaased to hear that 4 puppies have been adopted since yesterday. 

 

This is a photo of mine with one of my pup buddies! 

Who can resist them anyway.. They're so cute! Working with them, makes me want a dog even more!! ;)

Meet the Mentors!

 

On March 19, we met our mentors for the PYP Exhibition. I was excited to hear that our mentors where Ms.June and Ms.Sheherbanoo. This was one step forward to interact and come up with more thoughts and ideas.

We first introduced ourselves and shared our different perspectives. We were asked why we chose the 'Human Rights' topic. I feel that many of the human rights are being denied and their needs to be respect and dignity for every individual.

We also tweeked our matrix a bit, to make it PERFECT!

Then, we made an Edmodo group for sharing resources and our opinions. We looked up the dictionary to find names for the group.

 At last, we discussed the kind of field trips and guest speakers we would need.

It was a great Wednesday for Warm-Up of the Exhibition!

Skype in Suzhou

 On Wednesday, we had a Skype Session with Mr.Jarret Brown's MYP students of grade 6 from Suzhou Singapore International School, China. 

Our main objectives are to -

• Collaborate with other students and schools, no matter where in the world they are
•  Take a virtual field trip to any place
• learn more about different people and places

Mr. Jarret started off with talking about their country and the environment. Consequently, Iliyan and I introduced our class and talked about India. They were also doing the 'Organizations' unit. we talked to them about organizations, as well as our PYP Exhibition. 

The funny thing was that there were students from all countries other than China! We met people from Germany, Australia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Beijing and many more.

Based on the six topics : Global Warming, Wildlife, Human Rights, Corruption, Terrorism and Poverty, we asked them many questions about the action that they were taking and how it had an impact on their lives. They spoke about n=many organizations such as :

• UNICEF for children and women
• Catnip for cats and their safety
• Animal Asia which helps conserve bears and elephants

They talked about the problems they were facing because of these issues and the actions taken. 

1. Global Warming - The school has air purifiers of the bad pollution and smog. No harmful materials are used and everyone tries to recycle, reuse paper.
2. Terrorism - There has been a lot of bombing.
3. Poverty - Their is economic imbalance. Where as in some parts of China like Beijing, Chen Mei the government is getting richer and richer, in other places more of the population is going below the poverty line.
4. Human Rights - To prevent abortion of the girl child, hospitals do not reveal the gender of a baby. People are spreading awareness by funds and posters.
5. Wildlife Conservation - They talked about the different organizations working towards it, and how they themselves are volunteering.
6. Corruption - They talked a bit about the government.

Even they asked us a few questions about India.

It was a really exciting, friendly, informative, interactive and amazing session!!! :D

Community Action Service

On Tuesday, the students of Grade 10 came to take a session on Community Action Service. CAS is basically voluntary work, to give back to the community and in order to help people have a better life. It gives them a platform and opportunity in the global community. They have done this out of generosity and not for themselves. It is so that they can dwell social skills and learn to meet and interact with different people.

They talked about all the different actions they had taken, which would help us in our Exhibition.

DFC - Design for a Change

Here they put up a rally for awareness to prevent smoking.

KGBV - Kasturba Gandhi Bal Vidyalaya

A few of the girls visited this school to educate children and teach them good manners.

They also organised a Reading Club, which took them 7-8 months. This included Level Identification, Fund Raisers, Buying Books, Donations and Dividing Levels.

Kongrakala

Here, a group of them taught English.

Caring Hands

Where they took care of dogs and other animals.

I feel that the self-motivation because of the satisfaction and by understanding different perspectives and perceptions. It is important not to expect a lot because you may not get it.

They also talked about fundraising and how its an achievement. You can do interesting stuff with it. For charities you mustn't give cash so that you can avoid misuse. It's always better to give something that people need, the required materials. And giving charities should be done only after research and to an authorised organisation.

CAS is compulsory in the International Baccalaureate to get your Diploma Certificate. It does always have a good outcome. The teachers and advisors support students and give them ideas.

It has a great learning outcome too. These underprivileged children never crib and are always satisfied with what they have in their small world.

The students would like to keep up the persistence and not stop serving. After all, every small step can make a big difference!  :)

Next, we got into groups and made up an organisation, keeping in mimd the purpose, funding, etc. Our's was CAW - Children's Awareness for Wildlife, where we teach people to love animals and try to stop poaching.

It was truly one of the best, most interactive session we've ever had!! ;D

Making the Matrix

Along with the Musical, on Friday we had the Exhibition Day. We had a combined class, where we chose our Mother Central Idea. It is 'Peoples action can lead to seeking solutions and achieve sustainability.' Next, we continued with framing our Central Idea and chose the Learner Profile Attributes, Attitudes, Skills, Related Concepts, Science and Social Strands and AK Strands.

We divided the related concepts and connected them to the key concepts. Based on this, we formed our lines of inquiry. 

After that, we saw a really inspirational music video by Nickleback called 'If Everyone Cared'. It was about how a small step could bring about a great change. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IUSZyjiYuY

Then, we got a paper where we had to write about the kind of action we would be taking and what kind of support we would need.

 

The matrix is as follows :

Human Rights

 

Central Idea -  Understanding rights and responsibilities impact the quality of life.

Lines of Inquiry

• The rights and responsibilities of people in a society
• The way rights and responsibilities impact the lives of people
• Taking action to provide equal rights

AK Strands

• Ethics
• Cultures
• Pluralism
• Governance and Civil Society

Key Concepts

• Perspective
• Causation  
• Responsibility

Social Studies Strand - Social Organizations and Culture

Related Concepts

• Authority
• Citizenship
• Rights 
• Roles
• Religion
• Trdition
• Diversity
• Identity
• Conflict 

Learner Profiles

• Balanced
• Open-minded
• Leader
• Inquirer
• Communicator
• Steward
• Knowledgeable

Attitudes

• Empathy
• Tolerance
• Respect 

It was indeed a hectic and productive day!! ;) 

Some Snapshots!

Hands On Action Fun!

As a part of the Community Action Service, today we visited the Primary School of Mankhal, Tukkuguda, to take teaching sessions with the children over there. Our main objective was to get a taste of Community Action Service.We went there and took a one hour long session. It lasted from 1:30 to 2:30.

Our goals were to:

• Help underprivileged children learn the basics of ART AND CRAFT and HEALTH  AND HYGIENE.
• Become better communicators, become open-minded and try to be a risk-taker by getting out of our comfort zones. Improve our communication skills in a language
• Try to engage them in hands on activities and learning engagements.

I was in the Art and Craft Group, and I call it - Get Your Hands Dirty! ;)

 

Our Plan of Action -

There were 14 members in our group with 3 Telugu speakers, who would keep moving around for helping and translating for everyone. We really brainstormed, and came up with five interesting forms of Art :
Vegetable Stamping and Leaf Printing - Anahita, Iliyan.A, Rehaan, Saifan
Drawing and Painting - Fiza, Parinita, Sazil
Making Beads and Necklaces - Sharlin, Rahil
Origami - Aarzoo, Aashraya
Quilling - Elisha, Sai Priya, Shelvina
Our Telugu Speakers - Parinita, Sai Priya and me, Anahita
Most of us decided to get our resources from home and hence, did not need any kind of funding. If at all, we wanted any, we were to communicate with the others and collect money from neighbourhoods or the school community. We tried to be judicious and efficient in the way we used our resources. We also thought of teaching the children about reuse, recycle and reduce, so that together we can bring about a positive change in the environment. We used many resources such as charts, paints, brushes, quilling kits, origami papers, beads, buttons, threads, leaves, sketch pens, knives,cookie cutters, vegetables, printouts, as well us technology such as iPads. (for videos and images)

 

 The Plan in Action

The Grades 4 and 5 had been divided into two groups. As each group came, Parinita started off, by talking to and then dividing the children into 5 sub-groups, and sent them to each of us. We used the grouping strategy we had discussed about. We worked in the long corridors. The Great Outdoors!

As a part of the Veggies and Leaves group, I was to bring many vegetables. We gathered different vegetables like Potato, Lemon, Lady Finger, Carrots and various leafs. We brought them cut, as planned.
I started off by introducing ourselves to the three Telugu-speaking boys : Vinay, Karthik and Mahesh. We showed them how to paint the leaves and vegetables. I explained it to them, and they followed. One by one, them tried every vegetable and leaf. They were really curious to try everything for themselves. The next batch was two girls - Lakshmi Priya and Puja. We let them take home a chart and gave them some vegetables too. They were really excited to show it to their parents. We tried out hand printing too with Lakshmi and asked everyone to write their names on the paper and potatoes.

The funniest part was when I gave the potatoes with Lakshmi's name on it to her. And she told me that she wouldn't be needing it. Why? Because she'll remember her name!! :) REALLY SMART! We both simply laughed at it.

Strategies

We had many strategies which helped us collaborate and improve our work. Our grouping strategy, where in we divided them into five groups based on our subtopics, was really helping us get organized.
We had not more than two to three students at a time, so that it was easier to manage them.
We also had only two batches, to keep the patience and not get bored. 

 

 Challenges

One of the major challenges we faced, was the language problem. Most of the children knew only Telugu, but we had only six Telugu speakers in out entire class. But we were fascinated to see that a few of the children knew English, Hindi and Telugu.

Learning Experience :

Do not judge people, environment or situations by external appearances. At first, we had thought that the children may not understand us or even be able to do some of the work. But amazingly, they gave us a pleasant surprise with their unique artistic talent and ability to grasp so quickly. They were really bright, willing to learn and had lots of curiosity. They were also very collaborative, cooperative, funny and great to work with. We had done really good planning and collaborating to get this together.
Their art work was beautiful!
And, it was not like we were doing them a favour and just trying to make them happy. But actually, we got happiness from their happiness.  The spark in their eyes, their willingness, commitment, contentment and appreciation really motivated us.  It is something that I also love to do. It has changed my thinking quite a lot.
Now, Community Action Service is something I want to take up and gives me satisfaction. And, this is just a small, rather tiny baby step.

I really loved it!! :D <3