Children come out with solutions to key issues

Chandrayangutta: COVA (Confederation of Voluntary Associations) and ICAN (Indian Children’s Action Network) organised the 14th Annual Display of Project Works on different social issues by the school students of Hyderabad at COVA office in Bandlaguda on Wednesday. Students worked on five topics for project works for 2018 viz., government hospitals, public transport, child safety, fake news and problems that parents face in educating children. Around 220 students from 31 schools working in groups of two each submitted 110 projects on the 5 themes were shortlisted from them.

The young minds compiled information from libraries and internet, undertook field visits, interacted with people and officials, made notes of their experiences, came up with interventions to address the problems studied and finally prepared the project reports documenting the entire process under the mentorship of their teachers. “The objective of the programme is to sensitise people, especially school, college, university students and young professionals to social issues and concerns to inculcate in them compassion and responsible citizenship required of a good human being and enlist their commitment to address social problems to make society humane and just,” said Gowtham Uyalla, Communications & Resource Mobilisation Officer.

He said that teachers enrolled in this programme were trained on facilitating the students to gain a systematic understanding of important social issues and initiatives to address them by using the methodology of social sciences. This programme provides an opportunity for students to become aware, compassionate and responsible citizens. All the project works undertaken by 220 students from 31 schools on the five themes were displayed at a programme organised by COVA at their office in Bandlaguda. Over 1,500 students from different schools attended the expo and interacted with the authors of the projects and gained insights into the social issues covered.

Dilip Kumar Gir of USA inaugurated the Display of Project Works and inspected the works of the students in detail. He was very appreciative of the effort of students and action-oriented awareness they acquired as a a result of engagement in project works and, commended the action taken by some teams in addressing specific social issues like fake news, child safety and finding solutions as part of the project. Delivering the valedictory address, the chief guest, S A Huda, a retired IPS officer, said that the work students had done and the interventions suggested to address the problems were commendable.

Viqar Ahmed Shafeeq, CEO of Sharp Detective & Security Service and the guest of honour for the programme, also spoke and urged the students to carry forward with such initiative to understand the social issues. The programme concluded with the award of prizes and certificates to outstanding projects. Elico Pharma and Sharp Detective and Security Service sponsored the Project Works Display Programme.