It’s been over seven months since a tiny virus entered countries and brought them to a standstill. What started as a trickle of cases in our country has now become a torrent. The students stay locked up in their houses and teachers are working extra hard facing innumerable challenges in continuing their duty of imparting knowledge. Parents are stressed with their work, looking after their homes and helping their children study besides facing the anxiety of keeping the family healthy and protected.
We have wondered how we can keep spreading the message of safety to the children and the public at large. We have now started taking our marquee Safety Themed quiz contest to schools and involving not just the students but entire families in this effort.
Along with our knowledge partners Walnut Knowledge Solutions, we have held two very successful events this month.
The first one was held for the students of Aaryan Study Circle, Goa on Friday 18 Sep. for the students of Grades 8-9-10. A total of 161 students from various schools from Goa , joined in and had a fantastic time learning some new safety related stuff and revising important messages. A big thanks to Vyankatesh Prabhudessai for helping us organize this event. The top 5 winners of this quiz were
Some of the insights that we got were that about half the students were aware of the 20-20-20 rule. In these times of online classes, it would be appropriate to coach all the students to reduce eye strain.
Only 14% knew the steps of using the fire extinguisher. We certainly have to train our children better in these basic safety techniques.
The second session was held by Kohinoor International School, Thane, on 26 Sep. and they had also invited students from other schools in Thane to participate. This was indeed a generous gesture on their part. This was a first for us – a Safety Quest specially designed for students from Grades 1-4. We had 211 students and their parents join us in this event. A big shout out to Deepali Nene, Principal, and Jignasa Gala who helped us organize the event and mobilise the participation. The image on top was the specially designed invite that Walnut Knowledge Solutions created for this event. Here are the top 5 winners and their details:
For both the events, the winners received gift vouchers for QShala sessions from Walnut Knowledge Solutions.
We received a good feedback from the participants/ parents. 73% felt that the format of the quiz was a very effective way to learn about safety.
Sharing a few comments here.
Thanks for an enriching session. -Saanchi Nangare
Wonderful session. – Anvay Gadgil
Quiz was amazing. – Vidhi Dessai
Really great session and worth spending time for awareness. – Tamanna Sinha & Anand Sinha
Super fun and it was learning for parents as well. – Naksh Makhija
Amazing and good initiative! – Atique Shagufta
It is heartening when we see that children have internalised some key messages. This is what they told us:
* Safety relates to both indoors as well as outdoor activities..
* Start a habit of using a checklist to reduce errors
* The importance of seatbelts, even in rear seats
Also, a big thanks to the team from Walnut Knowledge Solutions : Vaishnavi, Binila, Vindhya and Raghav.
Here are some pics.
SQ at Aryaan Study Circle
SQ at Kohinoor International School
It’s 6 years since we lost you, Aru. We think of you every moment. We miss you terribly, but you are with us
… deep in our hearts
… deep in our thoughts
… continuing to guide us
… continuing to inspire us.
Here, we share your message to the world on the brew that is LIFE.
The Aditi Scholarship is given to a girl student from an underprivileged background. It is with immense pleasure that we announce this year’s Aditi Scholarship – Ms Bhavani Jesval Of Shishu Mandir School has been chosen as the recipient.
Bhavani has been an active member of the Safety Ambassador program which is conducted by the Foundation in association with schools. Bhavani has been chosen based on her performance in academics and co curricular activities, her behaviour with teachers and peers, and her social contribution.
Sharing a little about Bhavani, her dreams, and experience as a safety ambassador. She writes and I quote,
“I am Bhavani, studying in class 9, at Shishu Mandir Education Centre. My hobbies are reading and pencil sketching and I also enjoy writing stories. My dream is to become an author. A part of my dream is also to bring about a change in the society which I hope to fulfill by becoming an author because it is my belief that words have an impact and influence people.
Being the young generation, it is in our hands to bring about change and by being a part of Safety Ambassador program (run by The Arundhati Foundation) I am able to make an effort to do so, and be a responsible member of our generation. I now think that accident isn’t just a mistake, it is a result of our irresponsible acts. The Arundhati Foundation believes that every accident is preventable if all of us act responsibly.
All of us have become so engaged in our lives that sometimes for our selfishness knowingly or unknowingly we harm others. We Safety Ambassadors are educated in all kinds of safety, especially road safety.
We have lots of activities and learn in unique ways. There are sessions taken by different people, quizzes, different demos on how to use safety equipments, etc. This is the learning part.
Then we educate other people on safety rules and how following them can bring about a positive change. We perform street plays and conduct rallies to spread awareness.
I am very happy being a part of this because it gives me an opportunity to serve our society.
If every Indian was educated on road safety and followed the rules, we could save an average of three lives every ten minutes. But, more importantly, we would be saving the source of happiness of three families, and their loved ones.
Another reason which made me happy being a part of this Foundation is the reason why it was started. The founders, Dr. Shubhangi Ma’am and Sanjay Sir started The Arundhati Foundation in memory of their daughter, ‘Arundhati’. Instead of venting out their frustration on losing their only daughter in road accident, because of someone else’s irresponsibility, they decided to start a foundation where they could educate people on road safety so that other people might be prevented from going through their situation. Their real life incident was an inspiration for me that when things go wrong instead of blaming my fate I should try to change other people’s.
I am proud to be a Safety Ambassador and part of The Arundhati Foundation.”
It’s been great having you as a Safety Ambassador, Bhavani, and we hope you have a fulfilling future and a healthy and happy life ahead.
[ the pic above is from an event in 2019 ]
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.
The department of Biochemistry, Goa Medical College, betters itself every year when they conduct this quiz in Biochemistry for the students of 1st MBBS. What I find extremely touching is how year after year, they manage to source lotuses to present to winners to commemorate the emblem of The Arundhati Foundation.
The session was inaugurated by the Dean of Goa Medical College Dr Shivanand Bandekar. Dr Andre Fernandes, Professor and HOD Department of Forensic Medicine was the guest of honour along with Dr Jagadish Cacodkar, Professor and HOD, Department of Preventive and Social Medicine.
The first prize was won by Rohan Luis Cabral and Saniya Mahendra Pednekar, the second place winners were Shrushti Prakash Mandrekar and Shubham Mablu Gaonker and the third place was bagged by Amisha Sawant and Siddhant Siddharth Desai.
Congratulations to all the winners.
I was lucky to attend last year, but this year, the corona virus pandemic made us stay put to curtail the spread. Dr Chitra’s team, as usual saw that the event went on very well. This year a group of young singers from 1st MBBS enthusiastically staged a wonderful performance. So heartening to see multi-talented youth.
The Arundhati Foundation thanks Dr Chitra Dhume, Professor and Head Dept Of Biochemistry, Goa Medical College and her entire team of Department Of Biochemistry for this event. It is only because of the support of such dedicated people that The Foundation has been able to do work of importance and quality in our small ways.
Ever grateful to you all.
May each and everyone of you always be blessed.
Here are a few pics from the event.
This post is by Anuj Tambwekar
This is not to take away anything from the tremendous effort required to contain and counter the coronavirus outbreak. It is a reflection on the lessons for road safety.
As of today, COVID 19 has been contracted by atleast 1,74,000 people, and has killed 6,684 of them (source https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/). The reason people are (rightfully) scared of the novel coronavirus is twofold –
1) it is growing exponentially
2) it is unseen and relatively unknown
(Some naive math incoming)
Exponential growth means the number of cases on a day is some multiple (>1) of the cases the previous day. Scientists speculate a growth rate of about 15%, meaning that each day the total number of cases is 1.15 times the number on the previous day. While this may not seem like much, to put it into perspective, it means every 5 days the total cases double. If we have 100 cases on a particular day, in 5 more days it’ll double to 200, and within a month it’ll be over 6000.
The second point is that COVID is unseen, a new strain, and people are scared about how it passes on from person to person.
To beat the pandemic, the growth factor needs to come down below 1. When this happens the growth slows down and eventually conditions will stabilize. To do this people are adopting defensive measures. Washing hands, staying at home, sneezing and coughing into sleeves, etc. “Social Distancing” is the new buzzword. The basic premise is that you don’t know who might be infected and whether you are already compromised, so you take up defensive measures to prevent the disease from getting to you, or spreading from you. In fact, the advice is that we should act as though we are potentially spreading the disease, and therefore act defensively to curb its transmission.
There is no doubt that a lot of concerted effort is required worldwide to contain and counter the Coronavirus. But it puts the challenge of road safety into perspective.
Over 400 people die every day on Indian roads. It’s not okay to compare this number to any of the numbers from the nCov pandemic because this growth is linear and not exponential. But, even so, it is still a very large number. Over the course of 1 year, we will lose about 1.5 lakh people to road accidents in India! It is therefore important to realize what we can learn from the COVID experience and how we can apply it to road safety.
The takeaway is that the way we can curb the fatalities on the road is the same way we flatten the curve to contain the COVID pandemic – Defensive measures!
We do not know who might be driving rashly on the road, so we can only be proactive and control how safely we ourselves drive with alert anticipation.
Distance is advocated for keeping the virus at bay. And the same holds for driving – maintain safe distance!
We avoid crowded places during the outbreak – how about reducing the crowding on our streets? While public transport options may be avoided in these times, it is the one solution that will help reduce the congestion on the streets and thus reduce the incidents.
The reason lots of people don’t take road safety as seriously, is simply because they feel the opposite as to what people feel about COVID. They feel “nothing will happen to me” as opposed to “I could get it from anybody”.
Accidents are fairly commonplace and everyone sees them. Very few people have actually seen a case of COVID in front of them. Human nature makes us scared of the unknown and stupidly brave of the known.
The end goal should be the same – minimise the loss of human life. We have to learn from the current scenario and make the right decisions. Equally important is to carry the same knowledge and experience and apply it to other places where it is just as relevant.
And, as the ancient wisdom says, Prevention is always better than Cure!
************
Sources of the graphics:
Logo from Road Safety Team at Northamptonshire Highways
Covid-19 news on Moneycontrol.com
Another belated post …
We got a request from Prakriya Green Wisdom School to conduct a session on School Bus Safety for students of grade 1-3. This was the first time we addressed young children of this age. This was also the first time we tackled the subject of School Bus Safety. So we took some time to prepare ourselves and conducted the session on 11 Feb. About 120 students attended the session.
We started with discussing the differences between Buses and Cars. And the normal safety rules for child passengers in cars. Then, we went on to show the danger zones around the bus, the blind spots of the driver.
The talk was divided into
* Waiting for the Bus
* Boarding the Bus
* Riding the School Bus
* Getting off the School Bus
* Crossing the Street
It was a pleasure because the children were very engaged and interactive – asking questions, sharing their experience or comments. We did a quick hazard mapping exercise with the children using a few pics and videos related to school bus safety. The children were quick to respond.
We also went out to the school yard, to do a practical session with the children and demonstrated the danger zones.
In the most dangerous zone, the child is not visible to the driver at all.
A little further, the child’s head may be visible but not the full body.
Only after the full body is visible to the driver, can we say that the danger zone is crossed.
We also provided a suggestion to the school bus coordinator to ease the process of drop-off at school such that the children do not have to cross in front of the bus in the school yard.
Hyundai has a very nice video “Traffic Safety with Poli” which we used.
Taking a cue from some material we saw online ( from Podar International School ), we tried to make it a little fun for the children by creating small rhymes sung to the tune of “Here we go round the mulberry bush”. Some ditties don’t rhyme, but you can follow the meter 🙂 This was incorporated into a one page worksheet which was sent via email to the children/parents to recap their learning. We hope that they help in retaining some of the learning.
Take a look:
Many Thanks to the dedicated teachers Pranjal and Shalini for their help in organizing the event. From their feedback, it does look like the message was well received by the children.
Oct 1, 2019 : At Vidyanidhi Infotech Academy
Sometimes a little delay in completing work at hand can lead to a total forgetfulness on my part. Possibly the age ultimately catches up. It’s been a few months since since my return from Mumbai where I conducted a Road Safety workshop for the students of Vidyanidhi Infotech Academy in Juhu.
I had been looking forward to this occasion for many reasons. I would be meeting few friends after ages and also meeting Mr Dadarao Bhilhore. Also called Pothole Dada, he is, like us, a parent who lost his child in a road traffic accident. His son, Prakash, passed away in an accident due to the negligence of the utility company that had dug up the road in Mumbai. Since then, Dada has been filling pot holes on Mumbai roads.
The workshop was well received with an audience of over 200 students packing the hall – all youngsters between the of 17 and 28 years. Just the right age group that we want to reach with our Drive Safely campaign. Many came up with questions on defensive driving and some shared their own experiences on the roads and accidents in their own family.
Dadarao, shared his story and his work, and about the Prakash Foundation, that he started in the memory of his son. Many students were inspired by his work, and have expressed their desire to join his cause and to help him whenever a pothole fix is organised by the Prakash Foundation.
The Arundhati Foundation thanks Savita Thakur, for arranging the session and the staff and students of Vidyanidhi Infotech for their participation, help and encouragement.
Walk Safe, Ride Safe, Drive Safe!
… Shubhangi
