A New Year! A new harbinger of smile and hope for all who have successfully survived the disruptions of 2020, be it the pandemic or be it ill-effects of the same!
January 2021 brought in a lot of excitement amongst schools and students with the news that schools would be reopened shortly albeit with certain restrictions in place due to the ongoing pandemic. Students are now in a mood where they can hardly wait to meet their friends, their teachers and more than that, just to spend some time in school classrooms & courtyards. The pandemic made them realize the importance of going to school every day and that study from home is not what they had signed up for. Since the beginning of January schools & teachers are connecting with parents on a daily basis and counseling them about reopening of schools while also assuaging their fears about their wards’ safety.
Smile Foundation’s Child for Child team wanted to Ring in the New Year with students who seem to be in an exuberant mood and to join them in their joie-de-vivre. Not only will schools reopen soon, the academic year is also coming to an end. The anticipation is visibly building up for a new class, new batch mates and a back to school scenario. And before students get busy with their exams in the month of February, we Smile Foundation’s team CFC decided to organize a two day fest for about 15 schools who wanted to Ring in 2021 with Smile and who have been our biggest patrons for the campaign Shiksha Na Ruke. These are the schools who have even during the pandemic displayed an exemplary level of empathy towards the underprivileged children in the society. This Fest was an ode to their big heartedness! Some of the schools which participated include Bhawan Vidyalaya Jr, Chandigarh; St. Soldier International Convent, Mohali; Mt. Litera Zee, Bhatinda; L’ecole Chempaka and Sarvodaya Vidyalaya from Trivandrum; Gopalan International School, Bangalore; Sarla Birla Gyan Jyoti, Guwahati; Guru Nanak Public School and Laurel High The School from New Delhi; St. Sebastian, Goa to name a few. Over 200 students registered for the event from these schools.
Day 1 was Fancy Dress Competition & Day 2 was a Song & Dance competition. There were judges for the contests and there was Bhuwin Khursija who joined in the 2-day fest to deliver a Live performance with his Guitar & vocals. He regaled and completely floored the audience with his mellifluous vocals and his rendition of Sufi numbers while also playing the guitar. The entire event was on Zoom platform. But, for the occasional technical issues, it felt like a 48 hours concert where there was display of some exceptional talent and visible outcomes of sheer hard work.
The theme for Fancy dress was picked up from the Earth day Foundation’s mission for this year, “Restore Planet Earth”. We saw children dressed up as Garbage Witch, Paper bags, Planet Earth and what not, all trying to spread the word about saving & restoring Mother Earth. The winners for the Fancy Dress Competition are Arav Khanna (1st position for Mother Earth costume), Tanish Lodha (1st position for Newspaper costume), Aadya Jain (1st position for Garbage Bag witch), Riddhi Jain (2nd position for Mother Earth), Reeda Zakiya Nawaz (2nd position for Crude oil ), Vasu Bhanderi (2nd position Save Earth), Mayank Kochar (3rd position for Dirty Earth), Adi Anand (3rd position for Forms of Water) and Parth kathuria (3rd position for Raincoat made of waste plastic).
The Dance & Song competition on Day 2 was packed with a phenomenal outpouring of participants & saw some excellent classical & contemporary performances. The winners for the dance competition are Ishabir (1st position for Western Fusion), Esha Paramesh (2nd position for Bharatnatyam), Arshdeep Singh (2nd position for Bhangra), Krishtee Barman (3rd position for Sattriya) and Ojasvi Aggarwal (3rd position for Kathak Fusion). The winners for the Song competition are Mishti Garg (1st position for Raag Khamaj), Kamakshi Das (2nd position for Raag Khamaj) and special mention to Sanskrit Chakraborty (Jab Deep Jale Aana).
Our jury for the 2 days, Ms. Rena Banik, Ms. Sulagna Sarkar and Mr. Kshitij Mathur who had a wonderful time while judging and found it incredibly difficult to arrive at the results.
Smile Foundation conveys heartiest congratulations to all participants and special wishes to all who have occupied the first three positions!
To know more about Child for Child visit https://www.smilefoundationindia.org/childforchild.html
