Wizkids say change we can!

HYDERABAD: They are projects of students, by students and for students. One is aimed at taking quality education to the doorsteps of the underprivileged kids and the other at cleansing the very air we breathe.These are the ideas of City’s Horlicks Wizkids 2011, Varsha Gandikota from the Chinmaya Vidyalaya and Prateek Shankar from the Hyderabad Public School, who have been short-listed for the Horlicks Wizkids South-Asian Finals which will be held from November 15 in Bangalore, where more than 50 school children selected from across the sub-continent will participate.“Of the three topics given to us for our projects, I have chosen the Right to Education and made it a part of the Orange Leaf, an NGO founded by me and one of my friends,” says Varsha. The Class XII student has launched a campaign called Open Books -- for the Horlicks Wizkids contest -- through her NGO to provide a higher standard of learning to the underprivileged kids. “We have tied up with three orphanages in the city, Joy Home for Children, Prem Sadan and Rainbow Home. Children here go to government schools and find it difficult to communicate in English which stunts their growth in the real competitive world. A lot of these schools do not have libraries, so we are aiming at setting up libraries in all of them and inculcating the reading habit among the students,” she explains. Varsha and her mates have launched a book donation drive at five schools where more than 600 books have been collected. The donors, in most cases children, attached personal notes with the books much to the delight of the government school students, Varsha recalls. From her own school, she collected educational CDs and DVDs from students. The Federation of the Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce and Andhra Pradesh Plastic Manufacturers’ Association have endorsed the project and the former has donated 200 books. On the other hand, Prateek Shankar has chosen environmental education as his project. “I thought it needed attention as it is a major global concern,” says Prateek. Titled SCRAP, it stands for Segregation, Conversion and Recycling Awareness Project. It is a non-profit organisation which works towards building a greener future by promoting effective, eco-friendly management of waste and also promoting a sense of responsibility among students.“One day while I was at the ITC office regarding WOW (Wealth Out of Waste) project, I found out that we import 40,000 tonnes of paper. Then a thought struck me. Why should we import paper from other countries when we can recycle paper and use various other materials instead of burning it or dumping it? So, we started off a pilot project at my school by placing four different dust bins for waste segregation but soon realised that it was not going to work this way, as no matter how much you segregate them, in the end everything gets mixed up and dumped together,” he recalls. He goes on to explain, “Then I came up with this idea of Waste Fellow campaign. There were badges given to people which read, “I am a waste fellow. Are you?” This was such a hit and it removed the negative connotation, the word had. People started wearing these badges and there was awareness about it. These were then followed by a cleanliness drive in my school, where more than 350 students participated and then we had the SCRAP Fest.” Scrap Fest was an inter-school fest organised at HPS, wherein more than 13 schools participated in various activities which concentrated on everything made out of scrap. “There was a fashion show too called Trash n Fashion where people walked the ramp in costumes designed out of newspapers and milk packets. There was a poster designing contest where people used materials from broken tube lights to everything to make posters and there were really interesting things made completely out of scrap on display,” he says.Their one more initiative was a street play in Hyderabadi Hindi and Telugu at parks early in the morning. “The play was very much appreciated. IIT Hyderabad and AIESEC are interested in our campiagns and we have been approached to talk to their students,” he reveals proudly.