1) Seva Sadan Society, Gamdevi; April 15, 2006.

We, at PASSAGES, inaugurated our new project - Gift your Time - with an activity programme held for the students of the Seva Sadan Society at Gamdevi on April 15, 2006. This programme included activities that the girls could learn beyond their school academic curriculum and included image building and grooming, jute bag making, gift-tag designing and making, learning a dance and the art of applying mehndi.

The activities were organized for around 60 students from the ages of 10 -18 years who were already divided into groups by the staff (depending on their interests and abilities). The image building session was attended by all students.

The session began at 10.30 a.m. and ended at 1 p.m. with an elaborate lunch (for approx. 100 persons) sponsored by the Dhun & Dinshaw J. Amaria Memorial Foundation, c/o Dr. Coomi Singh (we gratefully acknowledge their support.) Dr. Tarana Khubchandani sponsored an attractive gift for every student of the Institute which they appreciated very much. Snacks were also sponsored by Neera Mittal. Thank you very much, all!

The following members/volunteers conducted the various activities: Meeta Jain, Neera Mittal, Payal Wadhwa, Shilpa Saraf, Parul Mehta, Sunaina Singhvi, Kanchan Khubchandani, Rashna Doongaji, Radhika Toshniwal, Deepika Vaswani, Bhavna Daftarey, Zarina Godrej, Dr. Indu Nair, Dr. Coomi Singh, Valerie Singhvi.

Programme Co-ordinator - Kaya Shewakramani Representative from the Seva Sadan Society - Heena Barman It was a very well-appreciated and fruitful programme with enthusiastic involvement by the students and staff of the Society. The students expressed their desire to have our volunteers teach them some more activities at a later date.

Anyone interested, please give in your name and details of activity to Snehal at the office.

2) Anand Kendra, Worli; May to mid-June 2006

During the months of May-mid June 2006, volunteers from PASSAGES had conducted a summer camp with the objective of imparting a skill or teaching lesser-privileged children residing at Anand Kendra, which is a home for orphans and abandoned children at Worli. The volunteers of PASSAGES conducted the following activities:

1)Shaun - Songs, dance
2)Vidhur and Nikhil- Computer literacy
3)Rashna - Story telling
4)Radhika - Yoga training
5)Shilpa - Drawing and painting

The children enjoyed themselves thoroughly during this camp and learnt a lot as well. Accordingly, PASSAGES has received a request from Anand Kendra to conduct these activities on a regular basis. The requirements are as below:

1)Storytelling with English words
2)Word building - English
3)English conversation
4)Elocution and public speaking
5)Story telling
6)Yoga
7)Football/cricket

Those interested kindly get in touch with PASSAGES Co-ordinator - Sarika Pherwani - 98203-00281 and inform her about the activities that you would like to conduct at Anand Kendra later during the year.

3) Volunteering for "CMCA"

Children's Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA) is an initiative that has made a beginning in Mumbai, to promote civic and environmental consciousness in the city, through civic clubs in schools.

CMCA Mumbai is run on the same model as CMCA Bangalore, which was started by Public Affairs Centre, Bangalore (a not-for-profit organization).

CMCA Mumbai operates today, in over 20 schools, like, Campion, G.D. Somani, Navy Children's School, St. Anne's, Villa Theresa, Little Flower of Jesus, Utpal Shanghvi, Rajhans Vidyalaya, Jankidevi Public School, Beacon High School, Hiranandani Foundation, etc.

Based on the belief, that children are the best ambassadors of change, CMCA sets up civic clubs in different schools all over the city. Trained volunteers are attached to a school and help set up a civic club in the school. The volunteer then takes sessions once a week with the children (12-14 year olds), for one hour each time. Through the weekly sessions, the volunteer creates an awareness on various civic & environmental issues and gets the children to spread this awareness further, within the school and the neighbourhood. All the material required for the session content is given to each volunteer, along with the session plan for the year.

Apart from the 2-day orientation program, a volunteer's commitment is, in most cases, just one hour a week, on a fixed day and time. The commitment is for the entire academic year. On an average, we get approximately 15-20 sessions in a year, given the normal school schedules of exams, holidays, etc.