Gold
at the KPMG Interschool Athletic Meet
This year’s KPMG meet was a great success
for the children from Parikrma. Our children performed
brilliantly and our characteristic green and blue
uniform was always seen first at the finish line.
The bright-eyed boys from the under-10 category
won the silver medal for the 4x400m relay. Paosonlal
from Pioneer class, Sahakaranagar ran a grueling
Boys Under-12, 400m race and earned himself a silver
medal. Countless other children qualified in their
groups, from Girls Under-8, 50m to Boys Under-14,
1500m.
The biggest highlight was probably the 4x400m relay
for the Under-12 boys. Our four-member squad had
landed themselves with a place in the finals. The
team lined up on the tracks and shook out their
bare feet diminutively in comparison to the burly
contestants in the adjoining lane, their spikes
glistening ominously. What looked like a shaky start
for Parikrma turned into something unbelievable
when 3rd position, Zamsei took off from the 200m
mark and bypassed the runners that were meters ahead
of him. The rest is history. We were first, only
3 milliseconds off the record and miles ahead in
our team spirit.
Prajavani, the local newspaper printed an article
on the race and summed it up nicely by saying, “They
came barefoot, they saw, and they conquered!”
The Bangalore Sports Club along with KPMG gave Parikrma
the 1st prize for the most enthusiastic, participative
and fastest growing sports team in the city. We
were awarded a cash prize of Rs. 25,000 to use towards
building better sports facilities and a stronger
Physical Education curriculum.
Yahoo!
Team visits Jayanagar Centre
Parikrma
Partners with Yahoo!
Welcome to Parikrma’s fourth Centre for Learning!
This Centre, due to launch in 2006, is entirely
sponsored by the Yahoo!
Employees Fund India (YEFI) and will be located
at Nandini Layout, on the way to Yeshwanthpur. What’s
fantastic is that even though the actual school
building is not ready, the new centre’s 40
children have already become active school goers
at our school in Jayanagar.
Robert
Haas, Chairman - Levi Strauss
& Co. lights the lamp
Levi
Strauss Parikrma Centre for Learning
In May 2005, Parikrma launched the Levi Strauss
Parikrma Centre for Learning. This two-year old
Centre at Sahakaranagar, Bangalore is now funded
in entirety by Levi Strauss. Levi Strauss’s
sponsorship looks after education, healthcare, nutrition
and extra-curricular activities of 235 children.
Their support also makes possible a number of Parikrma’s
community development initiatives including women
and youth empowerment programs. Mr. Robert Haas,
Chairman of Levi Strauss & Co was present at
the Centre along with Mr. Lai, South East Asia Head,
Mr. Shumone Chatterjee, MD of India and Vasantha
Kumari, head of India CSR activities, to launch
this partnership.
Parikrma
Annual Day at Bangalore Town Hall
This year’s annual day was celebrated with
great gusto at the city’s town hall. Amongst
the many distinguished guests were the parents,
aunts, uncles, grandparents, great grandparents
and cousins of the children of Parikrma. What was
special was that both the children and their parents
participated in the lineup of poems, songs and plays
that were performed on the big day. Commissioner
of Police, Mr. Mariswamy gave away prizes to the
child in the most consistently neat uniform and
the most pro-active and supportive parents. But
most prizes were given to those children with most
regular attendance since over 98% of them came to
Parikrma everyday.
T
N Chaturvedi, Governor of Karnataka
at the Patang Utsav, 2005
Hope
Soars at the Airtel Patang Utsav
The ancient Indian sport of flying a patang came
alive at the Airtel Patang Utsav in March this year
at the Field Marshal Manekshaw Parade Grounds. The
Governor of Karnataka, His Excellency Shri T.N.
Chaturvedi inaugurated the event by flying the first
kite. The Airtel Patang Utsav was a unique celebration
of kite flying by corporate executives who enthusiastically
participated alongside the children from Parikrma.
Teams from Infosys, Airtel, Mphasis, ING Vysya,
Nokia, Manhattan Associates, KSRTC, Wipro, Titan,
Levi’s and Yahoo, were amongst the many corporates
who participated at the Airtel Patang Utsav. But
it was not just the corporate world that came together.
Teams from the Bangalore Mahanagar Palike and The
Indian Army also provided support to the event.
Each team flew kites engineered by the children.
The highlight of the event was the second round,
which saw large, colorful kites take to the air.
After being judged on five parameters of ascent,
flight, stability, teamwork and descent, the team
from Yahoo emerged as winners for the Airtel Patang
Utsav. Mr. Jagdish Kini, Executive Director, South
Regional Hub, Bharti Cellular Limited said, “Like
Patangs, Airtel is a symbol of freedom especially
of expressing one selves in many ways – irrespective
of shape, size and colour.”
Children
perform at the launch of the Dell
Computer Centre
at Sahakaranagar
Adventure-time
in the DELL Computer Labs
The children from Parikrma Centres for Learning
at Jayanagar, Koramanagala and Sahakaranagar have
been thrilled to have their regular Science and
Math classes in their computer lab, being able to
watch simulations of spiraling nebulae and speeding
comets. Thanks to Dell’s state-of-the-art
computer laboratories, our children have been learning
how to do independent research on online encyclopedias
alongside their mainstream academic curriculum.
Ask them how human populations behave and they will
not only reel you scores of statistics but also
demonstrate exponential curves on Excel! This amazing
technology will be integrated into the over curriculum.
The aim is to take the help of computers to deliver
learning in an interactive and fun manner.
Dell CEO in India, Romi Malhotra, officially launched
the Dell Computer Labs in Sahakaranagar. The Computer
Lab in Jayanagar will be launched in August 2005.
The
Motorola India team with their
donated three-wheeler
Library
with Motorola
With the support of Motorola, the Parikrma Centre
for Learning at Jayanagar inaugurated its library
with great pomp and celebration. There are books
stacked from wall to wall: political atlases of
the world, encyclopedia’s on natural history
and mountains of great novels. It’s a wonder
that lunch-break is a peaceful event nowadays with
the children gathered in their library discussing
the logistics behind how Rapunzel’s hair grew
as long as it did.
Apart from the Library Motorola also gave a three
wheeler vehicle that would used for transporting
goods and material across the Parikrma Centres.
There was a large contingent from Motorola for the
handing over of these donations. Mr. Mohan Kumar,
Vice President & General Manager, Mobile Devices
Software, Motorola India, launched the Library while
Mr. Sammy Sana, MD, Global Software Group - India,
launched the Parikrma and Motorola branded vehicle.
