IGC Award activities at Pathways World School Aravali

[Boyd Roberts]

Mona Sharma reports on a list of activities that took place in the first semester.

- Independence Day Celebration- after the formal flag-hoisting and cultural celebrations, a Sports Day was organized for our Support Staff which was largely run by the students and greatly appreciated by the Support Staff.

- Peace Week – to celebrate the International Day of Peace(21^st Sept) -this constituted assemblies, debates and presentations by students on PEACE and a ‘Peace Tree’ being set up with student- made doves  hanging as ornaments on it.

- PWS MUN- is a Pathways World School (PWS) initiative. This year’s theme was, ‘The current Global Economic situation and its effect on Peace and how Model United Nations can help understand this role’. We are certainly proud of the senior school students who actively helped in planning and organizing this rather successful event, with the support of the faculty.

- Gandhi Jayanti (2^nd Oct.)- The celebration to mark the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, is another student- run programme which comprises of a sit down (on the floor) meal for all. The students were responsible from the looking after of shoes of those entering the dining area (an Indian tradition of removing shoes when sitting down on the floor for a meal) to serving the food to everyone seated in the dining area and cleaning the place afterwards. There was a huge amount of ‘understanding other cultures & outlooks’ involved as a substantial number of local village artisans were invited to display their skills and have very interactive sessions with the students in addition to eating together as a community.

- The ‘Joy of Giving’ is commemorated annually and is run through the P.U.L.S.E. (Pathways of Universal Life Support Education) programme. This starts from Gandhi Jayanti in early Oct and runs till the Festival of Deepawali (the festival of lights) in mid-Nov, and the students get involved in various acts of giving, including giving ‘gifts that cost nothing’ e.g. smiles, compliments, kindness,  favours, compassion etc.

- Hindi Diwas (to celebrate our mother tongue- the Hindi Language) and Lit Week (an English Department initiative) were also run and the students again were exposed to a variety of literature & thought.

-Diwali- the Festival of Lights, is always celebrated in a very grand manner. Every year Pathwazians make a commitment not to spend on fireworks(thereby not contributing to pollution & child-labour) and instead use the money they would have otherwise spent on fireworks to give a gift to those in need.

-Halloween Day – a complete student initiative and another fund-raiser for charity where students wore costumes and willfully donated small sums to charity.

- The Annual  School Awards Ceremonies which were concluded by a Village Children Sports programme conducted in our school, for students from nearby village schools. Again the enthusiasm and responsibility of students in organizing and conducting the event was commendable.

- Groups of students took part in a number of MUN & Round Square Conferences (both within and out of India) and a number of trips that students undertook which indeed gave them a view of cultural sharing.

- On the 15^th of Dec. we had the huge Carnival in school, which was another senior school event. The students played a very active role in planning and organizing this day-long event comprising of fun games, food stalls, sales of artifacts, camel rides etc. It was hugely successful and I am happy to share with you that everyone who attended (over 2000 footfalls of students and parents) is full of praise. It is a huge fund -raiser and all the money raised will go towards supporting all the neighbouring village schools and their communities. One of the features of this event was to keep some kind of spending control on students, thus encouraging them to value money and its judicious use in every aspect of life.

- ‘Grandparents Day’ on 20^th Dec- An initiative by the Primary School which was attended by a large number of grandparents and some parents (over 800 adults) who were very moved by the extremely well organized celebrations. Some of the older students played an active role in helping to organize this rather special event.