Child For Child Celebrated Children’s Day with Fun Competitions

Children’s Day in India is celebrated on the 14^th of November. It commemorates the birthday of Chacha Nehru. This is a special day when children either get to stay home or have a day of fun at school, physically or virtually as the situation be. It is a day to celebrate childhood and to empower children with the knowledge and tools that will make them better individuals. We at Child for Child celebrated Children’s Day our way.

Children are the future. We need to nurture and nourish them. As the saying goes, “It takes an entire village to raise a child.” Every day as adults we should take a renewed pledge to help raise the future generation. We should collectively ensure that the world they inherit is worth living and ensure they reach such levels of development where the sky is the limit. Sometimes it is not just about teaching them but just being around them and proving to be good role models.

The event

This Children’s Day, Child for Child organized a competition for students across different schools around storytelling. Children were encouraged to share their written, video, and audio stories. They received three theme options from which they had to choose one.

1. A fictitious journey with your favourite superhero to a place you love
2. Your experience about going back to school after the Covid-19 school closure
3. A role model who inspires you to be empathetic and giving

Heartening response

For the first theme, we got insights into many superheroes (and this is a gender-neutral term here). And of course, children had such lovely places they wanted to visit. Some wanted to go to Kryptonite with Superman, some to Gotham with Batman. Our winner wanted to visit America with Iron Man and make it the journey of his lifetime. The innocence in this desire was reflected in his narrative. All he wanted was to enjoy the journey with Iron Man, who is actually a regular human being using technology and bravery to fight evil. What’s most endearing is that our winner chose the superhero who does not have superhuman powers but uses his intelligence and wit to transform into one, and that is where he sees himself in the near future.

For the second theme, children have written heart-rending stories about their experiences of going back to school. They laid emphasis on how they had started to lose interest in online classes. They had also started spending a lot of time on gaming. Reopening of schools was like a bolt of lightning that shook them up from their slumber. It once again motivated them to open their books and start concentrating on their regular school work. They also talked about how schools make them feel quite safe due to the Covid protocols in place. The thrill of meeting classmates and their favourite teachers motivates them to get up early, wear the school uniform, and head towards the school.

For the third theme, we had insights into the adorable thoughts of children. It showed their take on role models, and the reasons why that person is their role model. While there were some apparent role models like Rani Laxmibai, Bhagat Singh, and Winston Churchill, what moved the jury was the winner’s choice of role model. Here too it wasn’t the narration of her choice of role model but the reasons why. She adores her father, which is obvious, but the fact that his philanthropic nature inspires her to do a good deed every day moved everyone and there was a unanimous decision around this.

Kudos to the winners

This Children’s Day, as adults we felt inspired by the submissions made by children. Their stories, their narrations, the maturity with which they have weaved stories left us all awestruck. The fact that these children believe in goodness in the world and the people around them has impressed us a great deal. It is wonderful that they are empathetic towards those suffering, especially the underprivileged. It leaves us feeling that the world is in secure hands. The mission of CFC is to motivate privileged children to do good deeds for their underprivileged counterparts. This Children’s Day, we felt humbled by their generosity and their noble thoughts.

Many congratulations to all participants and a special hurrah to the winners.

Our winners for audio stories are:

1^st Place: Ojasvi Aggarwal of class VI, Bhawan Vidyalaya, Chandigarh

2^nd Place: Ashwath Sharma of Class V, Bhawan Vidyalaya Junior, Chandigarh

Our winners for Written stories are:

1^st Place: Keertesh Sharma of class IV, Bhawan Vidyalaya Junior, Chandigarh

2^nd Place: Aradhya Singla of class IV, Bhawan Vidyalaya Junior, Chandigarh

Special mention to Kuvam Goyal of Class I, Bhawan Vidyalaya, Panchkula for being our youngest participant.