Mixed Bag - HT-PACE Memoirs

HT-PACE And EPCO - Going the Green Way

HT-PACE has been associated with spreading awareness for a cause. After addressing various issues pertaining to education, freedom through education, etc, HT-PACE later decided to venture in its drive to protect greenery. In its pursuit, we managed to associate with EPCO - Environment Planning Coordination Organisation. Sadhna Tiwari, a senior official from EPCO, Bhopal had been forthcoming enough to associate with HT-PACE in its pursuits.

HT PACE along with EPCO, initiated a Inter-School Power Point Presentation Competition for which the topic was Preserving Bhopal - The City of Lakes. An overwhelming response by the students, was applauded among all circles, as it had initiated a Movement. Conservation of lakes and natural resources in Bhopal had been of major concern. The students handled the topic so well, that the suggestions and visuals used by the students for their presentations formed a basis of a Survey.

This competition paved way for an ongoing bond between the EPCO and HT-PACE as both kept moving in one direction. The objective was addressing the concerns arising out of growing industrialization.

The other initiatives undertaken by HT-PACE in this series were an Inter-School Garden Competition and Inter-School Group Discussion Competition. Both competitions had been conceptualised by Alpana Mishra in association with EPCO and Samarthan, an NGO.

The Inter-School Group Discussion Competition had been organised on the topic "Impact of the development projects undertaken under the purview of JNNURM in Bhopal. The youngsters, media and the student community were sensitized through this series of group discussions which had been organised in almost thirty schools across Bhopal. This series culminated into a Talk Show on the same subject, which was presided over by State Minister Jayant Mallaiah.

The Inter School Garden Competition had become an absolute hit as it had revolutionized the often overlooked school gardens. A few months time had been given to the schools to prepare for the same. It was indeed heartening to know that the schools had taken that extra step to beautify their gardens and look into their landscaping. The Competition was also appreciated, as steps had been undertaken to train the gardeners of the schools for the competitions with regard to parameters of the same.

Face to Face with Dr Kiran Bedi

In sync with our philosophy, HT-PACE continued its endeavor of providing class events to the city of Bhopal, which was immensely appreciated by all principals and intelligentsia of the city. One fine afternoon, the new PACE manager Alpana Mishra walked into the office with a great cheer on her face. She was happy!!! We did not know why, but yes, she wanted to share something with all of us. She made an announcement, "We were going to have Ms Kiran Bedi to address our Principals Meet this year". WOW!!! That was the word.

Thanks to our Resident Editor Mr Askari Zaidi, who had initiated a communication with the Supercop! And then he had extended the invitation for the HT-PACE Principals Meet. So there she was. The moment, the news was out, the entire PACE team was on their toes to start the preparations for the Meet.

Myself and my counterpart Anoop Singh sprung into action. The first thing that we needed to do was to prepare a campaign for the Principals Meet publicity. And the task had to be carried out by none other than our official designer Manish Choure. We shared the concept of the Principals Meet with him and informed that we were also having Dr Chakraborty from IIM Kolkata to address the Principals Meet besides Ms Kiran Bedi.

And as usual, our dear friend Manish Choure never let us down and came up with a brilliant campaign highlighting the side portrait of Ms Kiran Bedi and the advt stated:

FACE TO FACE
WITH THE SUPERCOP KIRAN BEDI.

The advertisements won a great applause among the HT readers as well as the school fraternity.

Dr Kiran Bedi was a phenomenon in herself. She had taken the school principals, teachers and the student community by a storm. She had transformed lives through her enigmatic presence. A personal and one-to-one interaction with the school principals had made their dreams come true - to be able to witness a phenomenon.

It was simply unimaginable, that the students come to school on a Sunday. But the school ground of Carmel Convent S S School, BHEL was chockablock with students at 7 am in the morning- with children pouring in from all parts of the city to be able to come face to face with the super cop.

Rest is history!!!

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.

Great Going with HT-PACE

My journey with Hindustan Times-PACE started in a very interesting manner. The Head Education for HT-PACE, Mrs Annapoorna Sehgal (In the photograph, rendering a welcome address during the Shiv Khera Talk Show) was on her visit to various schools at Indore on 5 May 2000. It was a historical day and also a historical moment, when we decided to meet at the Choithram School lobby. Quite an unassuming place to have a job interview.
But Mrs Sehgal, myself and the would-be manager for PACE chatted in the lobby in quite an informal manner and within minutes, she declared - You're on. My heart skipped a beat. And here!! I was introduced by her to the Choithram principal as the editor of HT School Times (which was yet to begin at Bhopal and Indore). And this marked the onset of my journey with Hindustan Times -PACE.
Then started my pursuits of relocating to Bhopal from Indore. House-hunt was a major one. But, thanks to all my friends and colleagues, who helped me settle at Bhopal with ease. The most interesting aspect was my first day at HT office, Malviya Nagar, Bhopal. There were just three of us - PACE manager Ms Nirupama Singh, myself and my editorial assistant Kirti Sundram - & to just one computer to give momentum to the entire mission, which was to begin.

The journey of HT School Times (HTST) commenced from 10 July, which will always remain close to my heart. The first issue of HTST rolled out on 10 July. Everybody had worked hard for it. Me and Kirti had run from pillar to post to get interviews, articles and children's articles from various schools.

It was a dream come true. Thanks to Mujeeb Faruqui, who managed to get the picture for the cover story from Carmel Convent School, Bhopal - Goodbye Holidays. Then came the second historical issue with the cover story 'The Red Planet'. The journey went on, so on and so forth.

The first few principals interviews had become history as few renowned principals were interviewed and their path-breaking ventures were highlighted which was quite appreciated among the education community. The leading educationists of Bhopal and Indore were included in an extensive interview. They were Mr N Jha, the then principal Choithram School, Mrs Anuradha Joshi, Principal Bal Bhavan School, Bhopal and Mr B N Trisal, the then principal of a leading school of Bhopal Jawaharlal Nehru School. All these schools are renowned in the entire region for excellent education and overall development opportunities being provided to the children.

My journey with HT School Times was a stage, wherein, I got an excellent opportunity to experiment with whatever I had learnt in my journalistic career and learn new things. This was an evolving journey at HT-PACE as it provided learning grounds to each one of us, who is excelling in the field called LIFE.

HT-PACE, Newspaper in Education Programme of Hindustan Times was quite new to the city of Bhopal as the principals, teachers and students were waking up to the fact, that there was whole new perspective which could be added by providing education opportunities beyond the classroom walls.

We at HT-PACE Bhopal although started quite slow and steady, but in just a year, were providing hundreds of opportuntiies to the children, teachers as well as the principals to look beyond the horizons.
A student as we all know is an outcome of the inputs provided by his immediate family, his friends, his teachers, his school and his neighbourhood.

The PACE team also grew at Bhopal and Indore and we had a full quorum of ten members across both cities. At Bhopal it was Nirupama Singh, myself, Anupama Venkatesh, Mrinal Gadre, Fehmina and Rosilyn. "Log aate gaye aur karvaan banta gaya."
Then came our first event - A painting competition. We had our first conglomeration of about 300 children. The event went off successfully. Then came the first Movie Mania wherein we showed the children movies Mrs Doubtfire and Dunston Checks in.

HT designer Manish Choure designed this advertisement for the Movie Mania, during which about five thousand children from Indore and Bhopal watched the screening of these movies on two consecutive Sundays. The 'Movie Mania' eventually became an annual feature with recurrences and innovations vis-a-vis viewerships and themes were concerned,

We, had organised a painting competition, wherein we had the privilege of inviting a noted cartoonist Pran to adjudge the competition. A unique teachers workshop was organised, wherein we provided an opportunity for the teachers to come out of their mundane routines and do some brain storming for innovative teaching methodologies. Dr Vinay Mishra, a renowned psychologist who had become an inseparable part of HT-PACE de-stressed the teachers through this workshop, which was thoroughly enjoyed by the teachers.

MORAL OF THE YEAR: The learning for the year was organising educative programmes for the children which also had an entertainment value. HT-PACE provided a beautiful platform for the students of Bhopal to showcase their talents. Be it in the field of art or quizzing, we at HT-PACE continuously strove towards providing the best of programmes for the children, teachers and principals.