Give Children “That Feeling of Being Powerful”

EMPATHY for fellow beings is a crucial learning component of our engagement with students. And, when they use this innate ability to take action it vindicates our intervention.

Teenager Subash, for instance, was one of seven CMCA Club members who found three abandoned horses dying of starvation. The students of Puttenhalli Government School not only brought the horses water from a nearby lake and fed them grass and bananas, but also got a vet to administer saline before they reported the matter to animal welfare NGO, CUPA. While one of the three horses died, two were saved by the students’ proactive behaviour.

Subash is just one of the thousands of Active Citizens being nurtured under our flagship CMCA Club programme, administered in hundreds of schools across India. It is our oldest and most far-reaching intervention to spread awareness on democratic and civic issues. The course content, ideal for 13-14-year-olds, encourages children to think independently and to proactively contribute to their communities and nation, so they become agents of change - and bring positive change to India.

Class 7 student Meghana K at GHPS Vimanapura, for instance, has learned “what to do if I see child marriage and the importance of empathy in our life in how we behave towards each other.”

As volunteer Shweta Kadaba says: “When children realise that you can influence your environment, influence your surroundings, influence other people - that feeling of being powerful isn’t so bad.”

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