Sky is the limit at HT - Year 2 at PACE

As we stepped into the second year of our existence, both HT School Times and HT-PACE had braced up to face the challenges of reaching out to Bhopal and Indore. The teams all geared up with loads of events and lot of experimentation with the editorial content of HT School Times. Thanks to the freedom given to me by the Head Education Ms Sehgal, sky was the limit. One could just go on writing. The results poured in the form of more and more children subscribers
rolling and the HT-PACE family growing from strength to strength. One of the interesting stories that I remember having done was a special story on the occasion of Children's Day. Myself and Kirti, my counterpart at HT School Times brainstormed, as to what could be done which would be liked by the children and will sensitize them. Then we thought of interviewing the street children and children hawkers, who lived a totally different world. Did these children know about the Children's Day or even for that matter, Jawaharlal Nehru? Speaking to these children was an eye-opener. And the stark reality - Childhood indeed had a galring contrast. Something enough to keep you thinking.
Then there was another piece of article, which is very close to my heart, We were just taking a look at the calendar of important days and we realised that it was the Day for teh Deaf and Dumb. I really had a strong desire of knowing how did the children with hearing inability interact in this world. And then we decided to visit the School for the Deaf and Dumb and chat with the children. It was a heart warming experience for us and also an eye-opener.

MOVIE MANIA

The year started with a Movie Fest across Bhopal and Indore, wherein, we showed four movies in a row on all Sundays to the members, 2001 was a year, when screening of children films was not quite popular as it is today. Children could only watch Kids Special movies on Star Movies at Home. But, we at PACE wanted to give our children an exclusive feel. Have you ever seen an entire theatre with a seating capacity of 1000 kids, entirely filled with children.

Scene I - 7.30 (Outside the theatre) Hordes of school buses start pouring in, with school teachers guiding the kids. You think the kids can run. No they cannot, because the long queues of kids are led by the class monitors and the teachers. Sports/PT teachers blowing the whistle to keep the children glued to their queues. And lo!!! What a hoopla the children create, as they run to grab their seats inside the auditorium. We, at PACE had to ensure that all children were comfortably seated and all schools watching the movie on a particular day were given an exclusive place, so the children or the teachers do not feel neglected.

The scene continued for years, for a whole week, year after years. Number of children grew from a throusand to about fifteen thousand across both the cities.

GLIMPSES

Another big event, that drew a major crowd was a three-day Summer Camp, wherein, we had loads of activities to offer to the kids. There were about five hundred kids, who had attended this summer camp at Hotel Noor-us-Sabah. It was am amazing mix of activities, thoroughly enjoyed by the children. Swimming was a major hit for all of them - some of whom had never seen one. Believe it or not!!! But the pool was filled with children. There were separate timings for the girls as well as the boys, I still remember, the kids were in love with us!!! They wanted us to be a part of the entire fun.

Including the two hour dance sessions.... We rocked!! The St Joseph's Girls gang headed by Arshi Khan had even taught us the steps for the Ketchup Song!!! We had to learn the nuances of everything to know the pulse of the kids. So the Summer Camp was a runaway success, started in the first year and kept gaining a bigger magnitude - year after year.
HT-PACE INTER-CITY QUIZ

Highlights of the year included an Inter-City Quiz between the schools of Bhopal and Indore. The quiz was conducted by Mr Amer and Cadbury's was kind enough to sponsor the same. The quiz had taken almost a month to build up at Bhopal and Indore. Two student nominations had been sent by almost twenty schools each from Bhopal and Indore, who were made to attempt a written preliminary round. The six shortlisted school teams battled it out.

BOARD WORKSHOP

HOW TO EXCEL IN BOARD EXAMINATIONS -

The new experiment which we tried this year was a Board Examination Workshop. The entire team sat and brainstormed about the fact that certain students lose marks because of certain mistakes, which could be avoided. We therefore formed a panel of teachers at Indore as well as Bhopal and kept one school as a venue for the same in the respective cities. The panel of teachers included teachers who had already been on the invigilators list and also had an experience of checking board papers for SSC as well as CBSE Boards. The Board Examination Workshop organised in the month of January received an overwhelming response, wherein, we had almost 200 students from Class X and about seventy stduents from Class XII at Bhopal and about three hundred children at Indore. All these children were given handouts of model question papers and mock papers by the teachers of almost all subjects which helped them brush up upon the entire syllabus. The objective of the workshop was to help the children minimise their errors with a view to score higher.

The PACE gang, as we called it comprised Natalia Warren, a perfect Leo with incredible leadership traits, Anupama Venkatesh as the Programme Coordinator, Fehmina Siddiqui and Mrinal Gadre as the School executives and Rosilyn as the cog in the wheel. Me and my counterpart (as I always called her) Kirti Sundram (Yet another Leo!!!) stood by me in all my, rather our endeavours. We had sttruck a beautiful chord. And we freaked out to the hilt, while we worked. We, were a team of unique disposition. All of us were at the peak of our careers and wanted to give it a best shot. So we did not leave a single stone unturned, wherein we could provide quality through our editorial content as well as events.

We, at PACE always had a commitment to the entire children community, teachers, the principals and academicians. We felt, it was our responsibility to provide a platform to the children to showcase their talents. In sync with our philosophy, we organised an Inter-School Debate Competition at Jawaharlal Nehru School, which was presided over by the Arch Bishop of Bhopal Fr Pascal Topno. The children winners from Bhopal competed with the winners from Indore and the winning students represented Madhya Pradesh at the Location finals at New Delhi.

HT-PACE Bhopal kept organising unique activities for everybody and created a niche for itself in the educational fraternity.