St.Sophia school

Date:- June 7th 2009
It was heavy-eyed weather to start our day...Previous day was rained well, cool breeze making to drowsy again. We reached St Sophia School bit early to start our program with.As per plan the program outline was discussed and shared with. We met principal Yogesh of Sophia school. And briefly re-iterated the program out line.Adithya had already reached school by 8AM. Had little chat about knowing each others. School children finished their daily prayers and Yogesh gave a brief speech about importance of trees and World environment day for school children from grade 1-10.. We too were happy to start a day with a smile on little kids face. By this time all our volunteers arrived.

Myself and Levine started to vacate the staff room to conduct the awareness program for the children. We just rearranged the stuffs in the room to make more space.We set the projector and tested all working fine with a satisfaction.

Per previous visit, we had already done survey for identifying the right location, distance between the pits. Anil and his friend’s Kiran, Siddarajau, Vinay and Anil came with 5 nos labors. Each was assigned to take care of 1 road with a labor to start digging the pits. Swapna, Shrishail and Adithya were supporting at the same time. Swapna was media between others to locate the venue and managing stuffs.Also we borrowed few digging tools from School go-down. Anil made life easier by arranging labor and marking the pits, and digging work too off. This we planned as children may not be experience with digging and not to make them tired before planting saplings.











By this time Levine and I completed the session 1 for 5th grade. Levine has designed the slides in such way that children should be aware of importance of tree with lots of cartoon, pictures and made as “learn with fun”. Awareness was important as many children do not know trees other than coconut and Papaya.
Also we identified a leading person in each session to take care of the planted sapling along with thier group. Identified a lead in each grade to monitor the saplings further to initiate activities related to environment. Then we started with grade 6th. Swapna switched to support awareness activities.
By this time we completed digging pits of 50 numbers. A small break was taken. Shivashanakar, who suggested the place to plant saplings and a helping hand for us arrived with authorization letter to collect saplings. I and Abbas got in to the school van to collect the saplings from Gandhi bhavan at Jnanbharathi campus. By this time Phani and anitha arrived to nursery to assist us.We moved the Honge sapling of 350 nos to the van and started back to school. By this time Levin has completed awareness program for High school and awareness program was successfully completed. Shiavashankar also gave advise to children about the tree plantation. Totally around 150 pits were dug around the school premises. Time is ticking! 1 o clock! Now it’s the time for children to start home. All children were gathered to plant saplings.Now we divided 2 groups:Children who want to plant at their house premises took the plant and sent with their parents.Other batch as volunteer children group collected the saplings and started to fill the pits. Now all of volunteers from LIFE assisted children to plant. It is real joy to see children fighting to plant a plant. We gave few plants to residents of that area as they were interested plant in some other location as well.













By now it was around 2PM and we exhausted with saplings and say “Thanks” to children and staff of Sophia school. As memento we took few pictures of all volunteers with staff and children with gratitude of “we did something better today” Said Good bye to others as well at 3PM. On spot Adithya P donated 2000 INR towards LIFE Following are the volunteers helped for this project. (Please forgive me, if I missed anyone name by unintentionally)Everyone’s help is heart fully appreciated. Thanks to Yogesh, Shivashankar and Sophia school staff for their very positive support. Levine, Anil, Kiran, Anil, Siddarajau, Adithya, Shrishail, Arun, Abbas, Phani, Anitha, Ashwin, Vinay Swapna and Harsha
Also heard Daily Mirror news paper will be publishing out event on 10-june-2009. Levine has provided the write-ups Kindly find few pictures attached and link at:http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=lets.integrate.for.environment&target=ALBUM&id=5345654309235058433&authkey=Gv1sRgCOPzwKCQgpuV1wE&invite=CMTTg88P&feat=emailMore pics to be uploaded!