May 31, 2020 : Safety Quest Amidst The Lockdown
A tiny virus entered the human community, traveled countries through its people and turned the world upside down.
The world came to a standstill.
As schools, colleges, factories and offices closed down, we too cancelled all the awareness sessions we were scheduled to hold. Schools and colleges shifted to online classes and we wondered how we could still continue to spread our message of safety. Our knowledge partners, Walnut Knowledge Solutions had already taken a step to adapt to these circumstances and had started conducting online courses for their flagship Qshala program, which also engages families in quiz programs on weekends. And so, we decided to ride on the Qshala platform to conduct a safety-themed quiz, Safety Quest, online. It wasn’t our usual Safety Quest format. But the team from Walnut did a great job in adapting the content and format to this online medium! They also did a great job in researching the recent developments, and adding some interesting new material.
This is a first for us. Thanks to the Internet, we were able to take this message across the globe. The quiz was held on the national and international level this time! The 31st May turned out to be so special for us.
The Safety Quest received great response in each of our 3 sessions! We had 330 families in Junior, 205 in Sub-Junior and 45 in International round. We had participants from Chennai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Vadodara, Rohtak, Nagpur, Vellore, Cuttack, Navsari, Uttar Kashi, Bhopal, Kolkata, Madurai, Mysore, Pune, Patiala, Tripura, Thane and Mumbai. And international audience from Tokyo, Toronto, Bristol, Copenhagen, Atlanta, Bristol,Dublin, Muscat, Karlsruhe, London, Oslo, California. It was fantastic to see active participation from so many different places. Indeed, it gives us the confidence that we have a mechanism to take Safety Quest to other places very effectively! As per the norms followed for the QShala platform the prizes for the various winners will be shared via Walnut Knowledge Solutions.
What is so exciting is that since this is a family quiz, the parents also joined these sessions and we were able to share safety tips with parents too. There were a few adults, who love quizzes and joined to engage the child in them.
The online platform also gives us an opportunity to seek some feeback on the sentiments of the participants. 92% of the participants said they learnt something out of it! This is very heartening to us.
We received this lovely message from Shalaka Thakur from Mumbai.
“The Arundhati Foundation supported Qshala SafetyQuest today has changed the way my family and I look at safety. Apart from being extremely informative, the way the questions were designed, compel one to think of, not just answers, but the issues underpinning these questions. It made learning about safety fun and engaging. The Arundhati Foundations quiz has really turned around my idea of how Safety Awareness can be spread. Although it was primarily targeted to reach children, I think ( speaking from experience ) that adults would find it equally interesting.”
This is what Bhavani, Class 8 student of Shishu Mandir School, Hellanagar Bangalore had to say. “Having had the opportunity of Qshala workshops last year, I was extremely excited by the thought of joining it. The best thing about this quiz is that we learn without even realising it! The online quiz we attended was very interesting and fun. Safety is a very important topic about which we need to be aware. It was also a good way to spend our lockdown. I would like to thank Shishu Mandir, The Arundhati Foundation and Walnut Knowledge Solutions for this and look forward to attend more of such sessions.”
A few other comments
“Very well researched questions, and fun watching smart kids.” .. Ashok Gapchup
“It was a great program and appreciate the efforts in inculcating safety in children at the right age” .. Ashok R
“The quiz was very very interesting today” .. Akshayalakshmi
“Sorry for the family’s loss, and thanks to them for the wonderful work they are doing” .. Rajiv Ratnam
We, are ever so grateful to Sachin Ravi, Raghav Chakravarty and the entire team of Walnut Knowledge Solutions for the wholehearted support in collaborating with us to help us spread the message of safety.
Attached are screen captures of the various quiz sessions to give you a feel of the audience.