Jan 15, 2017

The Arundhati Foundation took up the task of cleaning the footpath on Cambridge Road. It was strewn with debris, stones , bricks and sand after sewage pipes were laid on the road. As a result, a lot of people including children from a neighbouring school were forced to walk on a busy road.

The kids of St Meera’s School and PU College willingly joined us to lend a helping hand to senior volunteers.

I share this post by Ms Pratibha who happened to pass by. She stopped to inquire and was generous enough to get juice and biscuits for the youngsters.

“Aunty thank you for allowing us to help” the kids said to me. “It was a very satisfying experience to something good. And when people stopped by to appreciate us, it made us feel even better”
They further told me that they would like to volunteer for the foundation to spread the message on Road Safety !
I am so touched! These kids made my day.
The Arundhati Foundation thanks these kids and Ms Prathiba for their gesture.

Jan 7,2017

A Road Safety Awareness program was conducted at Hindu Balika Patasala ( HBP Indian School) Shivajinagar. This is one of the oldest schools in our city. Founded in 1854, even before the first War for Independence (1857) and even before the birth of Mahatma Gandhi in 1869! 
The children studying in this coeducational school come from the weaker sections of the society and from all religions. 
We found the children extremely receptive and eager to learn. They are pretty smart too! We conducted a pre and post test session to see how much the children benefitted from our session and measured over 82 percent improvement in performance.

Volunteers , Arun, Prakash, Nithish, Nganscho helped conduct the session.

The foundation will also sponsor tenth standard textbooks to the student who stands second in the final exam of ninth grade. The person who stands first gets a scholarship and hence we decided to encourage the student who stands second. 
The books will be distributed through the Aditi program. 
It gives us immense satisfaction to touch the lives of children and hopefully contribute a little to try and mould them into responsible young citizens.

Jan 3, 2017

The volunteers from St Meera’s conducted a road audit in the vicinity of the school premises. The CoRPS road safety audit form was used as a guide. The audit was conducted at two different times – when the school begins and when the classes end. The audit covered various aspects related to traffic density, traffic calming, road conditions, footpath conditions, signage, locality. The Ulsoor police station constables, and Mr Prathap of PotholeRaja joined in the afternoon session.

The students came up with several recommendations :

• Signage and patrolling to prevent people violating one-way rules
• calm the traffic near the school using rumble strips, signage
• designating drop zones for children to be dropped
• Define a zebra crossing to facilitate the children to cross the road
• Improve signage near the school

A detailed report with the observations and recommendations was  jointly signed by the Mr. Irfan a Khan, Principal of St Meera’s PU College; Ms Selva Kumari, Pricipal of St Meera’s School and Sanjay Tambwekar of The Arundhati Foundation. This report has been submitted to the Bangalore Traffic Police ( DCP East, and Ulsoor )

what you see in the picture above is a schematic used in the recommendations.

Dec 10,2016 :

This evening, the volunteers from ST Meera’s PU college conducted a road safety quiz at the School Fest they organised. The quiz was organised as a part of Safer Roads Safer Campaign by YSA UL and Trax. 
There were over 500 students from various schools in the audience. Tamil Selvan did a fine job as compere.

The first Prize went to the team of Poornaprajna School , the second prize by students of Bright English High School and the third prize by Sacred Heart Girls High School. 
The participants received gold. Silver and Bronze Medals for their performance .

The Best Overall Performance in the fest was also sponsored by Arundhati Foundation under its Aditi program. The prize went to Ms Agnes from Sacred High Girls High School. The prize was a gift voucher for thousand rupees from Sapna Book Store.

Dec 10,2016

The morning saw Shriya, Gauri, Raghav, Bhumi, Arya and Abhinav learning what Traffic management in Bengaluru is all about.

The Arundhati foundation together with Positive Strokes conducted an awareness program for these youngsters. Nikhil Kumar, a volunteer with Positive Strokes, and Anusha Jaishankar of Positive Strokes led the children in understanding good behaviour on the roads.

The children were quick to follow and help Positive Strokes in choosing drivers following Traffic safety rules. 
These drivers will now get certificates appreciating their behaviour on our roads.

A wonderful program devised by Positive Strokes organisation.

The third Sunday of November is marked worldwide as the Day of Remembrance for accident victims – those who lost their lives, or injured, or have been affected by road traffic accidents.

This year. the WDR was today, 20 November.
Tomorrow is Aru’s 26th birthday.
We decided to mark these days by holding a junction event near the Ulsoor Police Station on the busy Old Madras Road in Bangalore, to spread the message “Safer Roads, Safer India”.

Thirteen volunteers participated in this event. In the run up to the event, the volunteers made slogans, discussed the nuances of those slogans ( What does it mean to say “You are the key to your safety”, or “Safety Never Takes a Break” or “Safety First” ). Posters were designed around these slogans to get the safety messages across in an impactful manner. Do take a look at the posters below. They speak a lot for the work done by these young volunteers.

As advocates of safety, the children were cautioned not to do anything unsafe. The posters were to be displayed ONLY to the people who were halted at the junction, and not to distract any drivers in motion.

Bhumi and Ananya also made a card thanking the Traffic Police for their contribution to this cause. The activity was started off by presenting the card to the police of Ulsoor Traffic police.

The children displayed the slogans and educated the public on road safety. The people who followed traffic rules were rewarded with chocolates. The volunteers got a sense of the impact they were making when people stopped at the lights, or when people removed the helmet from their arm and strapped it on. They urged those not wearing helmets. They gently told people who were stopping on zebra crossing.

Our success story is that these young volunteers were able to make people promise to do their bit, and did so with confidence, humility, and poise.

The youngest participant, Atharv Faldessai, all of five years, designed and painted his own poster and stood along with the volunteers for an hour doing his bit. Another success story today is that five-year old Atharv knows the five cardinal road safety rules, and proudly told us that his father always stops the car to the side of the road when he uses the phone.

The foundation wishes to thank
* Ipsita Basu for participating and encouraging us.
* Anusha Chowdary from UL for joining our event.
* Mr Abhishek Goel, DCP (East) for prompt permission and encouragement.
* Tushar Kapila, fellow grantee joined our cause, and came to encourage us.
* Shriya, Gauri, Bhumi, Anoushka, Ananya, Abhishek, Raghav, Arya, Selvan, Ngancho,Prakash,Nitish and Vivek for their creativity, enthusiasm and effort to imbibe the values, and spread the message.

Thank you so very much! You have been our strength.
Also many thanks to all our friends and well wishers who have stood by us and the Foundation.

Sharing a few photographs of the event.

A road  safety awareness session was conducted by the volunteers of The Arundhati Foundation on the 4th  November 2016 at St Meera’s School, Ulsoor . 

The volunteers Mr Tamil Selvan, Biswajit Mondal, Vivek J, Nithish AR, Arunkumar K, Prakash Rao Ezra, and Ngachnso, used a novel way to spread the message. They used the medium of mime to enact skits. No words were spoken, but it was a very effective way to get the message across to the audience. Students, from classes six to ten, watched in rapt attention, as the skits made them aware of the rules of Road safety.  

This mime was followed by the prize distribution for the Drawing Competition organized on Oct 20.

Mahalakshmi K, Diwakar Parihar and Vanitha P S won the first, second and third prize respectively in the senior category.  Serena, Joshua Sridhar, Abhishek took the respective honours in the junior category.  

The prize winners were gifted vouchers to buy books of their choice. Rs. 1000 for first prize, Rs. 500 for second prize, and Rs. 250 for the 3rd. The drawings were so good that we also gave four consolation prizes in each category! 

I must say , there is a lot of talent in our country. We just need to look around and point the young minds in the right direction. 

We are very happy that these  children  made efforts to read and understand the core problems on Indian Roads. We have also encouraged them to discuss these matters with their families. 

Through this program, we were able to reach 700 students. 

I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to Mr Irfan Khan, Principal of P U College, Ms Sabiya  Begum, Ms Selva Kumari and Fahmida Begum the co-ordinator, Principal and Vice-Principal of the school respectively. 

Sharing photographs of a memorable morning along with the winning paintings.