“A journey of thousand miles begins with a small step..”

Janaagraha, a Bangalore –based NGO is Transforming Pune’s children into active citizens of tomorrow.

Pune : Janaagraha, a Bangalore-based NGO that works with citizens and the local government to improve the quality of life in Indian cities and towns, has been successfully running a practical civic awareness (citizenship education) program called BalaJanaagraha for the past 13 years in Bangalore and 23 other cities across India.BalaJanaaghraha has been an extremely motivational project. It has given everyone the opportunity, a great amount of confidence, internal satisfaction and above all this it has made all a better citizen of India.

It is a uniquely designed, carefully thought out practical civic education program conducted for Grade VIII students of all types of schools.

Civic project is a part of this program in which students have to choose one road near their school and identify problems, propose solutions, interact with different people or relevant authority person and further work on it actively to implement the solutions.

To showcase their talent and efforts the Mini City Fest was organized. It was BalaJanagraha’s 3^rd MCF of 2015-2016, which was held on 9^th November, 2015 at Vidyanchal School, Pune by Ms. Nikunja Gujar, Pune coordinator of the project. She and her team colleagues Mrs. Aditi Purohit and Mr. Mohommad Saif are actively and creatively running this program in Pune since last two years now. Ms. Sanchita Garule (BJM) is the also volunteering this year for the training program.

The theme of the competition was, ‘Our Roads-the tender way’. There were eight enthusiastic groups representing different schools as a part of this competition.

The schools that participated in the 3^rd Mini Civic Fest were Vidyanchal School, Dr. ShamaraoKalmadi High school, Delhi Public School, Kilbil High school, SVS School, Beena High school, SJH Gurunanak High school and Loyola School.

The students from these different schools have worked on resolving different problems concerning water problem, garbage issue, Stray dogs, improper footpaths, Broken street lights, Traffic, Potholes, Parking problems and many such problems. Their Efforts were put in through different actions and activities like visit to cooperator, cleaning roads, awareness rally, street play, painting zebra crossing, making and using paper bags and many more.

The Delhi Public School, Pune won the 1^st prize while the2^nd position was secured by Dr, Shamarao   Kalmadi High School. On the 3^rd position was SJH Gurun Nanak High School.

However, all the schools performed extremely well. Every kid was high on motivation and energy. Each group brought out the innovative ideas and extraordinary planning. Each one had different strengths of their own. Co-operation between the group members and support from all the inspiring teachers, and parents lead all to victory.

Students with full of Zest made it indeed an amazing Fest !!

The cherry on the cake were the honorable judges. To judge the competition three dynamic personalities were invited. Mr. NadeemInamdar, Mr. Amit Singh and Mrs. Rupali Saikhedkar, all of them being active positive and aware citizens, shared their knowledge, experience and suggestions. Not only that but they promised the students, to help them in all the possible ways and guide them in the perfect direction as and when require.

In most of the teachers’ opinion, participating in this competition has given hands on experience to all the children as they got a chance to voice their opinion in public and in front of such esteemed people. This also made them more aware of the problems faced by our city and it indeed is a first step towards making these children responsible and positive citizens of our country.

Truly, “A journey of thousand miles begins with a small step..”

The team proudly says that, “The immense satisfaction you get by enlightening young minds and paving the way for a better and a beautiful world is ultimate” We aresure that everyone’s hard work, patience and seriousness will pay off and the situation becomes better in a way that 10-15 years we all will be able to see a clean and green India.