#joyofgivingcareerawareness 2019

Joy of giving is also called as Daan utsav which literally means “charity” why do we have to give charity and make people depend on us?

This is the thought that inspired me to initiate #joyofgivingcareerawareness

So what do we do? We impart career awareness and opportunities to 100’s of 12th standard girl children of presidency girl school, this is a corporation/ government school that is now a model school. We take people from the industry to talk to these children, who get to hear and see professionals who really work there. We DON’T give them endless lectures on career guidance or counselling we walk them the path.

After the success of the initiative that we started last year, we boldly took up the initiative this year too. We were glad our list only increased this year with more and more Givers came forward to impart their strengths and capabilities!

Day 1:

First event:

We had prince of Arcot Asif Ali who also is a quiz master volunteered and came to the corporation school to conduct motivational talk and a quiz for the 12th graders. It was an eye opener for us and the teachers that the children had some much knowledge all bundled in their brains but never used. My heartfelt gratitude to Asif Ali for giving his support and time for this initiative!

Second event:

Children in corporation schools know about only a hand few careers! They did not know that they could make a career for themselves by studying Accupresssure/ accupunture. We had a very dynamic lady Amudha who practices accupresssure. We could see their jaw drop when Amudha spoke about no medicine, no surgery only pulse correction. This was another successful event where children waited after the workshop to end to check their pulse. My sincere thanks to Amudha for coming and giving the children an insight to a new career.

Day 2:

First event:Journalism / media

Daniel from indian express was graceful enough to accept our invitation to give these children a know how about how really news is reported and reached to the people. It was indeed an eye opener to them as to how the news is identified, reported, captured and made available for public.

We had a few Children who said they wanted to take journalism as a career after this workshop. Thank you Daniel for spending your valuable time with these children.

Second event : Software company

Team coda was at the school with knowledge, goodies and snacks to be imparted.

The first thing that we removed from the children’s mind was that one does not have to study engineering to work in a software company. They took sometime to digest that fact.

Team coda spoke about the various opportunities that are available in a software company. How each member had their own story, none of them had a easy way up. Few of them from the team have themselves studied in corporation schools and faced as much difficulty in climbing up the corporate ladder.

It was an amazing experience with loads of laughter and learning! My gratitude to the entire team and to the person who was not around yet kept motivating the team from US my dear friend Sharan Gurunathan.

Day 3:

First event: self defence by S-KAPE

If you prevent you will not need to protect!!! So this session was totally about preventing and protecting oneself from the unknown. In this big bad world you never know who will attack you from were and for what! Being alert and always aware was the biggest take away from this session, specially for these young 12th graders.

Team S-KAPE showed a few videos of how crime can happen and then demonstrated how we could avoid it or fight it if required.

I personally loved the pin and stay calm techniques that were so simple yet so effective. The girls looked more confident and prepared to face their surroundings after this session.

My sincere gratitude and thanks to my dear friend Zhayynn and his team!

Second event : sound and visual engineering

Now this was completely a new word for these children because they knew no engineering beyond software/ mechanical/electrical!!!

And when all the celebrity names came rolling out like Simbu, GV Prakash and Shruti Hassan their excitement had no boundaries.

Team AAT college took the children through the path of digital movie making, sound engineering and many more related careers. They were kind enough to extend their invitation for children to visit their school with their parents to understand more about what they do.

Another career added to their list of choices!

Thank you team Aiis under the leadership of Rathish for giving the children this wonderful insight to know and learn about another unique career choice!

Third event: chef

My season of #joyofgivingcareerawareness would be incomplete without this one! How to be a chef!

Young dynamic and out of box thinker the young chef Payal kept the children interested with a interactive session of cooking basic dishes with minimal ingredients, while she took them across her life and struggle of studying hotel management and being a chef!

Nothing comes easy but when your determination is strong and you dream big everything is possible.

Day 4

Full day field trip at Sheraton grand resort and spa, Mahabalipuram!

When i discussed this initiative with Maneesh at Sheraton he was very excited to help us and got all the details from us to get the approval for the event. The management o Sheraton did not even blink an eyelid before they said yes to us, they were extremely supportive. We met the team the following weekend and that’s it, we all git rolling, excited and started planning the D-Day.

15th October will definitely be a very memorable day to all these 12th graders. I must say the workshop at Sheraton resorts was handled extremely professional by all the employees of the resort. They treated the children with so much love and care. Every workshop was handled with finesse.

We started the morning with career guidance and hands on exposure to baking and bed making. The children were than taken for a facility tour to show them how each department functions. After which it was biryani time. After lunch with headed for a group picture and sea view from the lawn!

My heartfelt gratitude to Maneesh, Anitha, sachin, Arun, vinod, Mr. Malik and the entire team. Sorry if I have missed any names. But i must say you guys rocked!

There are many people we my husband Harsharaj and I need to thank. So here goes the list:

Nidhya my dear friend who has converted this corporation school to a model school.

The children and their parents for staying back after school and willing to take the knowledge we impart to them. Without their acceptance we could never do this initiative.

The teachers of the school who stay back and support us in all possible ways.

Writers cafe for sponsoring the snacks for the day 1 and also for the bus that will take these 100 children to Mahabalipuram for a field trip. Thank you Mr Mahadevan and Tarun Mahadevan for always supporting me in most of my initiatives!

Shafee and lini for giving us 100 boxes of breakfast for the Sheraton field trip. Rennee thank you for the yummy cookies!

All the individuals and corporates who supported us by imparting knowledge to the children and giving them #joyofcareerawareness which they could have never got from anywhere!

Shri bala for being an inspiration and feeding the children sundal and Pongal!

If I have missed out on anybody sorry was not intentional!