INTER SCHOOL DRAMA COMPETITION

Drama is a strong medium of communication. In order to develop dramatic skills and promote acting ability among students, Study Hall, organized an Inter School Drama Competition at the renowned Sant Gadgeji Maharaj Auditorium on 27 Aug 2014. Thecompetition was limited to dramas in the English language.

Eight schools viz,La Martiniere College, Lucknow Public Collegiate, Sri Ram Swaroop Memorial, Seth M R Jaipuria, APS Nehru Road, Loreto Convent, DPS Indira Nagar and Study Hall participated in this unique competition.

The programme was presided over by Dr Urvashi Sahni, the CEO of the Study Hall Foundation and a well known connoisseur of the Arts. Renowned names in the field of theatre, Sri Surya Mohan Kulshreshtra, Sushri Chitra Mohan and Sri Jugal Kishore graced the occasion.

Mrs Shalini Sinha, The Principal of Study Hall, in her opening address brought out the importance of dramatics in the overall development of children during their formative years. All the performances were of a high standard and were highly appreciated.

The students and teachers of Study Hall played a stellar role in the organization and administration of this competition.

Loreto Convent and The Study Hall were declared joint winners.

 The winners were greeted with thunderous applause by a packed house.

 Aviral V Singh of The Study Hall was adjudged the best actor.

68th INDEPENDENCE DAY 2014

The 68th Independence day was celebrated with traditional zeal and enthusiasm. The National Flag  was unfurled by Dr. Urvashi Sahni ,the CEO of  Study Hall to the singing of  the National Anthem. Mrs.  Shalini  Sinha, the principal in her speech greeted everyone on this historic day and delivered an Independence day  message.

In her address, Dr. Urvashi  Sahni emphasised that all children must fulfil the duties assigned to them for the development of the nation.

A  moving patriotic song to the accompaniment of the School Band was sung by the students.

 ‘Masti  Ki  Padthshala ‘ an inter -house dance performance  lived up to its name and was highly competitive  Students of Prerna, Centre for  Learning  and Vidyasthali also showcased their talent which was well applauded.

EXCHANGE PROGRAMME WITH SOUTH AFRICA (AROSA)

 Study Hall was proud to host a group of students and teachers from Durban, South Africa who had come to Lucknow under a Cultural Exchange Programme from 30 March to 6April 2014.

This programme called ‘Art and Cultural Heritage for Peace’ (AROSA) is sponsored by the Government of South Africa.

This group runs a programme on ‘Dramatics’ for several schools in Durban.

Their effort to teach dramatics to the students of our school was received with enthusiasm.

The group was taken around and shown the art and craft of Lucknow besides a visit to the place of historical interest and a taste of Awadhi cuisine.

The Reciprocal Exchange Tour from India will be in South Africa from 18 July 2014 to

 23 July 2014.

STUDY HALL VISITS DURBAN SOUTH AFRICA – 2014

 Six students and two teachers visited Durban, South Africa for a reciprocal tour under the Students Exchange Programme.

To recollect, students and staff from AROSA, an Institute sponsored by the South African Government to promote Art and   Cultural Heritage for Peace, had visited Study Hall earlier this year. This Institute is associated with the education of under privileged children in their country.

The reciprocal tour to South Africa commenced on 18 July 2014. En-route, our group visited Pretoria, the capital of South Africa, besides other enjoyable places in Durban.

A cultural   programme was also presented during the visit.

The very interesting, educative and productive tour concluded on 23 July 2014.

Prerna Girl, Janki Sahu – USA Bound!

Janki Sahu with her host family in the USA

Janki Sahu, all of 15 years old and a proud class nine student of Prerna Girls School, left for New Delhi on the 8th August, 2014 – the day of the 12th Prerna Convocation. She is bound for the US where she will attend high school for a year on a scholarship.

Fourteen Girls and 42 boys applied for the Kennedy Lugar – Youth Exchange Program and Janki Sahu was the only one selected. It was a story of failure and obstacles that miraculously turned to success. This is her story:

Janki is the middle child, the daughter of a daily wage laborer and a house help who together earn a meager living not even enough to put two square meals on the table for themselves and their three teenage children – two girls and a boy. A dedicated intelligent fast learner, Janki, sporting a mile long smile, modestly introduced me and the AFS volunteer to her parents on the first interview at her home. While others were hesitant, embarrassed and even faked their residential addresses, Janki proudly took us to her home – a single room mud house with a tin roof that was no higher than 6 feet with a single entrance that one had to crouch to get into. The tin roofs and tin door were constructed out of flattened tin canisters and oil drums that her father had acquired from somewhere. The structure was housed under a water tank constructed to on 30 foot stilts erected to supply water to the residents of the area. The surrounding land was developed with local wild plants but was kept neat and clean – there was a definite sense of hygiene among the family of five.

The rules and regulations seemed to have been designed to keep Janki from winning the scholarship. She had to be able to speak and write English, her parents had to agree to let her go for a year, her parents had to have some form of government identity, her medical tests and records and of course – not to mention Murphy’s Law – Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Convincing her father and AFS to let her attend:

This was not much of a problem given Dr Sahni’s convincing power. So, this milestone was sooner reached than discussed. Then came the interview at Delhi. Fourteen girls were sent to Delhi along with their parents at Dr Sahni’s expense. Three Toyota Innovas were booked to drive the girls and their parents to and from Delhi. We were told that if both parents of the girls did not accompany them long with some form of government identification, the girls need not attend. Janki’s mother could not go as she was bed ridden and her father had no form of identification at all – private or government.

Requests and pleas were finally heard and we were allowed to send Janki along with her father – they would have to take their chances as they could not be allowed into the US Center without a valid identification.

They took their chance and won!

The security did not allow them to enter the US center because of a lack of identification and we all thought Janki was out of the running. After a couple of hours waiting near the gates of the US center, waiting for the successful candidates to emerge so they could depart for Lucknow. However, fete smiled on Janki for through the window upstairs, Ms Diane Millar saw Janki standing with her father and enquired why she was out there. On being told the reason Ms Millar came down with her staff and interviewed Janki and her Father outside the gates. She asked Janki’s father how she will manage when she comes back, and how he will afford to provide her with an air-conditioner and the luxuries she will be used to by then. He answered, “she will earn them.”

We were informed a few days later that Janki and Anchal Kannaujia were short-listed for the scholarship. Then a few days later we were told that Janki had failed the English Language Test. Dismay crept in but then we were told a week later to prepare her for two month and she will be re-tested. The team went into overdrive. Two months later Janki passed the test!

The bad news was that Anchal KAnnaujia was dropped from the final list and Janki was included. But now we had to get her passport – How, was anyone’s guess. Janki did not have a valid address!!

A lot of running around, a letter of recommendation to the passport officer from the local MLA, the local police and a helpful neighbor who took Janki in all contributed to Janki getting her passport – it was as if Hades himself was plotting against her but force majeure was on her side.

Hurdles Galore!

When we got her passport we thought everything was smooth sailing from here on – then we were asked for her medical records. How, in India, can a child born to illiterate parents maintain medical records when the government health centers do not? We had to vaccinate her all over again for viruses and diseases we never knew existed. But we did! It took all of one year to prepare for the KL-YES scholarship, and we were putting medical records together even on the day Janki was to leave for Delhi! – Last minute requirements.

After attending the 12th Prerna Convocation Janki left Lucknow with her father bound for Delhi by bus. She is scheduled to fly to the US on the 11th August. We all wish her safety, knowledge and the love of the host family she will be staying with for the next year – Luck you ask??? She definitely has all she will need I’m sure.

INDEPENDENCE DAY 2014

PRERNA GIRLS CONVOCATION 2014

Prerna School organized its 3rd convocation successfully on 8th Aug 2014 wherein the girls of classes  10th and 12th were felicitated by our honorable chief guest Begum Habubillah, Mr. R.K. Mittal and Dr. Urvashi Sahni.

The alumni who have got their Bachelor’s degree were also awarded at the ceremony.

Prerna school encouragement has enabled  78 out of 80 girls to further pursue their Bachelor’s degree from the year 2009-2014. Out of these 78 girls, 13 have completed their graduation successfully and 3 have enrolled for  their Master’s degree.

Prerna school  feels proud to have  delivered  100% results in the last 3 years for classes 10th and 12th .

BETI BACHAO, BETI PADHAO

Dr. Urvashi Sahni
President & CEO, Studyhall Educational Foundation, Lucknow
& Non-resident Fellow,The Brookings Institution, DC, USA

Before July 17th 2014 a 6 year old girl was raped in an upscale private school in Bangalore and a young woman was raped and murdered brutally in Lucknow, her mutilated body found in an upper primary school campus. The horrific sexual assault of Nirbhaya in Dec 2012 and the more recent twin rapes and murder by hanging of two teen girls in Badaun ( also in UP) still haunt us. These cases of sexual violence against women and girls are now almost daily instances of a deeper malaise that ails us. The incidence of sexual abuse faced by children in India is not a secret. There have been several studies that have alerted us to the problem. A study conducted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, with the help of Unicef, Save the Children and a Delhi based NGO Prayas in 2007 reported that two out of three children face physical abuse, and 53.2% children face sexual abuse in some form and 21.9% being abused severely. 50% of the abusers were people known to the children and were people in a position of trust and responsibility. It also found that children in institutional care reported the highest incidence of sexual abuse and assault. According to the Asian Centre for Human Rights, number of reported child rapes had gone up from 2,113 in 2001 to 7,112 in 2011. The issue of incestuous sexual abuse still remains shrouded in silence due to misplaced perceptions of ‘honour’ and fear. The extent to which it prevails still lies unmapped. The supreme court recently refused to recognise marital ‘rape’ as a criminal offence! Consider that India is home to 1/3rd of the 10 million child brides in the world! When girls are married off (read, physically, economically and sexually bonded) at 14 yrs, 15 yrs and lower, with no say in the matter, to strangers they have never seen, with no negotiating power, no rights of refusal or choice in their sexual relations with their husbands, is that not akin to rape? According to UNPF, more than 2/3rd married women between 15 and 49 years have been beaten and forced to provide sex. The law protecting children from sex abuse was enacted as recently as 2012 and the one recognising domestic violence as a criminal offence in 2005!
Women and Girls are unsafe at home, at school and on the streets. In a country where girls are largely unwanted, evidenced by the large rates of female foeticide and seen as a liability, evidenced by the high rates of child marriage and trafficking of girls, where education for girls receives scant importance -3.78 million girls are still out of school, unsafe schools will be a further deterrent for parents to send their girls to school. Physically schools are not safe. According to the Census of 2011, 53% households and 11 % schools had no toilets. This is a safety hazard to girls and women as girls have no choice but to relieve themselves in unsafe public spots.

What is the Government doing to address this problem? The current Govt has made some moves in this direction by announcing a Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign. Coupling girls safety and their education is a very insightful and intelligent move, provided there is a deeper realisation of what this entails. The interim budget has allocated Rs.100 crores for this campaign, Rs. 50 crores for Safety for women in public transport, Rs.150 crores for safety for women in large cities and Rs.3600 crores for drinking water schemes and for public toilets. Though the intentions are laudable, it has been pointed out by some that while Rs.100 crores have been allocated to womens safety, Rs. 200 crores have been allocated to the construction of a statue! The comparative value assigned to each speaks volumes of the actual importance given to girls and women by the Government.! The statements issued in response to the rapes by Chief Ministers in UP and Karnataka both are also revealing of a general attitude of apathy and impatient annoyance! Almost a feeling of – we have so many more important issues to deal with, why are we focussing so much on this?

While girls education has received some attention as a result of global advocacy and focus, a wider view of education is needed, to include the physical, social and political circumstances in which girls live their lives. Girls lives are in peril!

Several steps need to be taken in order to give concrete shape to the Save daughters Educate daughters campaign. But educators have an important role to play.

Education must include gender studies in the core curriculum of schools so that gendered mindsets which are the root cause of the problem, are critically examined, deconstructed and replaced by more equitable ones. The Government’s recommendation to include a chapter for gender mainstreaming in the curriculum is a welcome move, but more is needed. There should be a whole course devoted to gender studies. Sex Education with a focus on gender power relations, sexual and reproductive rights of women and a more respectful and egalitarian definition of womanhood and manhood should be discussed in schools. We must all learn to value girls and women more! Boys must learn to value and respect women and girls, take responsibility for the increasing violence against girls and learn to respect girls’ right to their own bodies. Girls must be empowered by their education to speak up when they are abused, learn to protest and to protect themselves, to demand their right to bodily integrity and respect at home and outside. Parent communities must be addressed by educators so that they learn to value their daughters for more than the sexual, domestic and reproductive labour they can provide

Civil society must keep up the pressure on the Government so that crimes against girls and women are taken seriously by the police, the judiciary and the administration and stern, expeditious action taken when girls are violated anywhere – at home, in school, on the streets.

Immediate action must be taken to provide the infrastructure required to ensure the safety of girls and women on the streets, in schools and other institutions – toilets in schools, more and better policing, inclusion of more female staff in the police force, as teachers, bus drivers and conductors. There is a flurry of activity by schools and parents to ensure safety for girls on their way to and from school and in school, which is a good sign, but it is not enough! Now is the time to help women and girls realise their absolute right to live life as equal, autonomous persons worthy of respect and to do all that it takes to make this a reality.