The SUPW Programme
The Socially Useful and Productive Work (SUPW) programme is an integral part of the Mallya Aditi International School experience. Each year the students of Stds. 11 and 12 spend two weeks on various activities designed towards community service. The activities are a combination of outbound work and in school work during the school hours.
SUPW for the academic year 2022-23
The activities for the year ranged from building playgrounds, painting murals at underprivileged schools, film making, storytelling, curating local tours and compiling traditional recipes into a book. Apart from making a social impact the programmes were designed to inculcate empathy and build a sense of diversity and inclusion.
Play for Change
This programme, in collaboration with U&I, empowered the students of Stds. 11 and 12 to fight student dropouts in low-income schools as “nearly 70% of Indian students drop-out by Std 10”. The students helped make the schools a more attractive proposition by building playgrounds and by sponsoring U&I’s efforts to ensure that children from lesser-privileged backgrounds, who are already in schools, thrive. Research shows that when a low-income school receives a fresh coat of paint or new infrastructure, enrollment rates spike.
MAIS students made local low-income schools more attractive by building three sustainable playgrounds. They enthusiastically got their hands dirty by excavating, drilling, concreting, installing, priming and painting a variety of play elements. To provide mentoring and tutoring access to 871 U&I beneficiaries, they also raised funds.
Std. 11 SUPW Programmes
Folktales of the Future
The focus of this programme was to understand and raise awareness about problems being faced by the fast-paced development of Bangalore and its impact on social and ecological ecosystems. The approach was through storytelling methodology to express and communicate complex problems. This programme was designed and delivered by Glocal CoLab.
The students engaged with the community to gather stories and interpreted them to make them relevant to the future. The students visited Avalahalli village, the urban locality of Malleshwaram and Jarakabandikaval forest reserve, to create the final output in the form of performative storytelling. The programme culminated in narration and enactment of the stories for the students of Stds. 4 and 5 at Aditi.
The World of Film-making
The main idea of this programme was to expose the students of Aditi to the world of film-making and collaborate with a local government school. In the process, it exposed the children from two different backgrounds to the joy and pleasure of jointly creating films, inculcating a sense of empathy and inclusion. The programme was curated by Black Box India.
After a one day crash course in film-making, students broke out into different groups or crews, in film speak. During the course of the week, they selected the stories inspired by fables, scripted, created storyboards, cast the students of the government school, held rehearsals, shot the film on hand-held devices and simultaneously edited them. The programme concluded with a stage performance and a film presentation.
Here are the links to the films that were produced:
The hare and the tortoise
The boy who cried wolf
The sun and the wind
Anti poaching
Anti bullying
Day in Palanahalli school
Stories…Yours & Mine
The formal exploration of creative practice was the main aim of this programme. This was done through socio-cultural exchange and collaboration between students from socially diverse backgrounds. Oorkathe and Citylamps facilitated this by introducing the students to the design processes and creation of tangible artifacts.
The students of both schools engaged actively in sharing personal stories to co-conceptualize various murals. These were drafted and painted on the various school walls during the course of the week, brightening the entire place with their creative expressions.
Std. 12 SUPW Programmes
Curating Heirloom Recipes
The objective of the programme was to learn and propagate the traditional recipes by curating a book on heirloom recipes. The project was done in collaboration with the Institute of Hotel Management, Bangalore.
During the course of the week the students of 12 AICE-P interacted with grandparents/parents to collect traditional recipes handed down through the generations. Extensive research was done on the traditional cooking methods, utensils and indigenous ingredients used in these recipes. The students enjoyed the opportunity to take their recipe from the paper to plate and create delectable dishes which were photographed for the book.
Old Town Walk
This programme exposed the students to discover the history of old town Yelahanka. They were amazed to uncover aspects that they were unaware of in spite of being part of this neighbourhood for several school years. This programme was done in collaboration with Gully Tours.
To understand the techniques of curation and narration for an engaging walking tour, they attended an existing walking tour. These learnings were applied to develop the plan and chalk out a map for the Old Town walking tour. Students interacted with local communities and traders to delve into the professions and the cultural evolution of Yelahanka. The week concluded with a 90 minute physical walk for the parents and a virtual walk for the Std. 8 students.
Enable Wings
The bedrock of this programme was to take the students out of their comfort zone by exposing them to socio-economic and physical diversity, thereby enabling them to develop empathy and creating a positive impact through inclusion. The students shared their learnings with the Std. 7 students of Aditi.
Some of the activities during the week included: :
- Painting murals on a local school library walls along with the students of that school
- Visiting an NGO that provides vocational training for the differently abled
- Visiting a corporate office that has some differently abled employees
- Learning the rules of road safety
In the past, the programmes have ranged from the conservation of birds, preservation of ethno-diverse communities in the Nilgiris, working alongside farmers, tribals and fishermen to create community engagement, to directing plays and films with the students of government schools and creating material for a school for the blind.
Through these collaborative internships we hope that students of Aditi will be able to explore socio-cultural diversity, develop empathy and create a tangible difference in the lives of the children they interact with.
For more information you may contact:
Priti Rao
Teacher in charge – Community Service
priti.rao@gsuite.aditi.edu.in
Student and Staff Exchange Programmes
International understanding has been fostered, in no small measure, by our annual student and staff exchange programmes. For over 10 years, the schools we have an exchange with are:
The Brearley School, New York City, USA (staff exchange)
Trinity School, New York City, USA (staff exchange)
St. Benno Gymnasium, Dresden, Germany
Realschule Germering Unterpfaffenhofen (near Munich), Germany
Östra Reals Gymnasium, Stockholm, Sweden
Kungsholmens Västra Gymnasium, Stockholm, Sweden
The ILSI program (Innovative Learning Sweden India) with Rudbeck Gymnasium, Sollentuna, Sweden, is continuing.
The school is always looking to establish new partnerships that will help our students become engaged members of the community.
For more information you may contact:
Geeta Paul
Teacher in charge – Staff and Student Exchange Programmes
geeta.paul@gsuite.aditi.edu.in
The Aditi Institute
The Aditi Institute is an extension initiative of the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities. Its core purpose is to act as a catalyst for the thoughtful and persistent exploration of the issues of our time by students, faculty and the larger community. The endeavor is to create a vibrant space for conversations, divergent perspectives and inter-disciplinary approaches, to engage and educate, to encourage discussion and debate. We also want the institute’s activities to challenge stereotypes, question the conventional wisdom and explore alternative ways of looking at contemporary issues.
These explorations have been enabled through the following:
• Interactive guest lectures by outstanding practitioners
• Seminars, workshops and symposia
• Occasional and/or regular publications
• Establishment of Chairs, Visiting Lectureships and Scholar-in-Residence programmes at the school
• Student and/or faculty led research projects
• Debates, panel discussions and informal interactions
• Creating resources to enhance and enrich classroom teaching
• Documenting and archiving the Institute’s activities
The institute is collectively run by a core group, with additional members being co-opted from among students, faculty, parents and the larger community, when deemed necessary. The institute is an integral part of Mallya Aditi International School and the school’s vision informs all of its activities. All institute activities are also guided by democracy, humanism and an open-minded, critical and progressive perspective.
Here are some of the speakers we have had over the last couple of years:
- Dr Moyukh Chatterjee
- Dr Pankaj Sekhsaria
- Murali Neelakantan
- Shraddha Bhandari
- Aliyeh Rizvi
- Pankaj Seksaria
- Dr. Ashish Kulkarni
- Krish Ashok
For more information you may contact:
Neetika Khurana
Teacher in charge – The Aditi Institute
neetika.khurana@gsuite.aditi.edu.in