Host Of Activities For ‘Bhavishya-Yaan’ Students At G.K. Marg

The Bhavishya-Yaan students at the G.K. Marg School have been preoccupied with their studies as well as other activities, thanks to several projects designed by the energetic Coordinator Ekta Shah. Apart from a talk on general and menstrual hygiene, the other topics that have been tackled are noise pollution, air pollution and rangoli designing. The first programme was a lecture by Dr. (Ms) Nutan Pakhare, PRO and medical consultant at Kaivalyadham and who is a general practitioner at Kurla. Dr. Pakhare started with a brief prayer and then unveiled a pictorial presentation to help the girl students absorb the information more easily. Apart from anatomy and the pains and problems of the menstruation process, she also shared Host Of Activities For ‘Bhavishya-Yaan’ Students At G.K. Marg information about maintaining body, hair, dental and overall hygiene. A few yoga postures and some home remedies (mainly ayurvedic) were suggested for relief from pain and stress. Forty five girls from the Seventh to the Tenth standards attended the lecture and said they would attend more such sessions in future. An equal number of students attended a workshop on noise pollution. Through PowerPoint and other presentations, they learnt that “Noise is sound without value”.

The causes of noise pollution, such as growing urbanisation and the population explosion, construction activities, transportation and vehicular movement were discussed, as was the concept of “permissible levels” of sound under the law. Newspaper articles and case studies of the ill-effects of noise pollution were also taken up. The students were surprised to learn that those exposed to noise levels reaching 110 decibels could suffer from mental trauma, deafness, physical fatigue, blood pressure and heart disease. Psychologists have even warned that exposure to prolonged noise for a full day can lead to severe disorientation and even violent behaviour. The students were given a decibel meter and went around taking noise measurements at various places in their school. A workshop on air pollution was also well-attended and the children learnt about the damages due to bad air quality. With Diwali fast approaching, volunteers of the Sanskaar India Foundation, an NGO, gave suggestions on how to adopt eco-friendly measures to celebrate the festival of lights. The children learnt how to make the traditional rangoli with flowers. They were provided with marigold flowers, petals and leaves to make rangolis.