Teen Day Celebration (July 12 & 14, 2011)

TEEN DAY CELEBRATION AT BASAVESHWARANAGAR, BANGALORE
In response to the call by Indian Academy of Pediatrics – BPS Adolescent chapter, Dr. Vimochana K, Pediatrician, Vishwasa Child Health centre, Basaveshwaranagar and Dr.Sudha, senior pediatrician retd. from Vani Vilas Hospital organized Intra – school competitions at 2 schools on the occasion of Teen Day 2011 with the help of volunteers from NGO - Youth for Seva (YFS)
The following competitions were conducted in both the schools. The theme provided for all the competitions by IAP was ‘Prevention of Teen Alcohol Use (Booze or alcohol abuse - either lose them or lose yourselves)’. But since we wanted to create awareness on other common habits like smoking and drug usage, we included them as well.
1. Poster making/Drawing
2. Letter Writing
3. Debate

Basaveswara School, Mahalakshmipuram

This is a Government aided Kannada Medium school catering to children of maid servants, garment workers & auto drivers.
YFS has been providing school kits & one volunteer has been teaching English Grammar to X std students since 2 years in this school.
Letter writing & Poster /drawing competitions were held on 14th July 2011 and Debate on 16th July 2011.

Letter writing:
Topic – Write a letter to a friend asking him/her not to indulge in drugs, with special emphasis on smoking & alcohol
Judges: Dr. Sudha H - Pediatrician, Retired Senior specialist, Vani Vilas Hospital Bharathi - Engineer, YFS volunteer Dr. Vimochana - Pediatrician, Vishwasa Child Health centre, Basaveswara Nagar
No. of participants: 30
Class VIII : 9 Class IX : 6 Class X : 15
Prize Winners:
Prize Name Standard First Kavya G X Second Ganesh Roa X Third Deepika N IX Consolation Bhavya P X

Highlights:
Most of the children had written about the following:
 Medical effects of smoking & drinking as causing cancer, harming lungs, heart, kidney, intestines. Some had interchanged the organs affected – telling that lungs were affected with alcohol. These factors will be explained in the talk during the Prize distribution
 Social effects affecting family - physical abuse of wife & children in the intoxicated state, bad environment for children to concentrate on studies, falling on streets in intoxicated state, etc.
 Influence of parents on children - aversion to parents, death of parents resulting in children becoming orphans & also how children start smoking/drinking because of parents
 They also wrote about resulting poverty & some even urged Government to close arrack shops.

Letters were judged based on the content & the format
Poster Making/Drawing:
Theme - Say NO to Alcohol & Tobacco
Judges: Sujatha - Engineer, YFS volunteer Sushma - Engineer, YFS volunteer Dr. Vimochana - Pediatrician, Vishwasa Child Health centre, Basaveswara Nagar
No. of participants: 18
Class VIII : 9 Class IX : 3 Class X : 6
Prize Winners:
Prize Name Standard First Cheluva R X Second Aravind M X Third Nayana P VIII Consolation Divya M X
The children were provided KG Card-boards by the YFS volunteers. They were told they could bring pictures & make a collage or draw pictures related to the theme. They had to put up captions also.

Highlights:
 The first Prize winner drew pictures of lungs & heart being affected & also showed a picture of a man vomiting blood on the road.
 Surprisingly, there were also pictures depicting women drinking and smoking.
 Most of the children put up crosses over pictures of smoking & drink bottles
 One child put up pictures he had collected from the internet, but they were not very much related to the topic. He had not given any captions and so he was eligible for a prize though his idea was unique.

Debate:
Topic: Teen Alcohol and Tobacco Use – Blame it on Media and Peers.
Judges: Dr. Sudha H - Pediatrician, Retired Senior specialist, Vani Vilas Hospital Poornima - Engineer, YFS volunteer Sujatha - Engineer, YFS volunteer Dr. Vimochana - Pediatrician, Vishwasa Child Health centre, Basaveswara Nagar
No. of participants: 08
Class VIII : 2 Class IX : 2 Class X : 4
Prize Winners:
Prize Name Standard First Jyothi X Second Guruprasad IX

Highlights:
 Children were not very aware of debating.
 Some spoke of alcohol & tobacco in general being bad without focusing on the topic.
 One participant who was supposed to speak against the topic spoke for.
 Jyothi, who got the first prize, spoke about how media & peers are the cause for people to take to drugs.
 Guruprasad brought few interesting points about will power.
At the end of the debate, Dr.Vimochana briefly explained about the points for & against the topic. They were reassured that being the first time, they had done well. They were encouraged to take part in more such talks and learn from mistakes.
Note: Only 1st & 2nd prizes were given here as most of the participants exhibited stage fear and failed to talk as expected.

Government High School, Govindarajanagar
This is a Government school catering to children of maid servants, garment workers & auto drivers.
All the competitions were held on 23rd July 2011.

Letter writing:
Topic – Write a letter to a friend asking him/her not to indulge in drugs, with special emphasis on smoking & alcohol
Judges: Mr. G. R. Chamnalkar - Retired Principal, Govt. School of Nursing (He teaches English in this school once in a week & has also conducted some awareness camps with the help of nursing students) Bharathi - Engineer, YFS volunteer Dr. Vimochana - Pediatrician, Vishwasa Child Health centre
No. of participants: 12
Class VIII : 2 Class IX : 4 Class X : 6
Prize Winners:
Prize Name Standard First Muddanna S X 'C' Second Jayasree R VIII 'A' Third Bhagyasree R IX 'B' Consolation Divya M VIII 'A'
Highlights:
 The language and grammar of the children in this school was much better than the other school.
 Most of the children had written about the Medical effects, Social effects & influence of parents on children as in the other school.
 Some of the children also wrote about pollution.
 Interesting points like the various factors which induce the child to take alcohol/cigarettes and about how Govt. has banned sale of cigarettes, etc within a few km radius around educational institutions were captured by few children.
Letters were judged based on the content & the format
Poster Making/Drawing:

Theme - Say NO to Alcohol & Tobacco
Judges: Sujatha - Engineer, YFS volunteer Sushma - Engineer, YFS volunteer Dr. Vimochana - Pediatrician, Vishwasa Child Health centre, Basaveswara Nagar
No. of participants: 15
Class VIII : 12 Class IX : 01 Class X : 02
Prize Winners:
Prize Name Standard First Bheeranna G H X 'B' Second Nandeesh M VIII 'B' Third Durgesh D S VIII 'B' Third Rajesh M IX 'B' Consolation Anupama N VIII 'B'
The children were provided KG Card-boards by the YFS volunteers. They were told they could bring pictures & make a collage or draw pictures related to the theme. They had to put up captions also.

Highlights:
 The first Prize winner drew pictures of lungs & heart being affected & also pasted relevant pictures
 The second prize winner depicted people taken to hospital
 Another put up nice simple self explanatory messages against the pictures
 Most of the children put up crosses over pictures of smoking & drink bottles
 There was a tie between two kids for the third place. Since both of them were equally good, 2 third prizes were given.

Debate:
Topic: Teen Alcohol and Tobacco Use – Blame it on Media and Peers.
Judges: Mr. G. R. Chamnalkar - Retired Principal, Govt. School of Nursing Vyjayanthi - Management Consultant, YFS volunteer Sushma - Engineer, YFS volunteer Sujatha - Engineer, YFS volunteer Dr. Vimochana - Pediatrician, Vishwasa Child Health centre, Basaveswara Nagar
No. of participants: 12
Class VIII : 04 Class IX : 01 Class X : 07
Prize Winners:
Prize Name Standard First Manjunatha X 'B' Second Pushpalatha VIII 'A' Third Manikantha X 'B' Consolation Divya VIII 'B' Consolation Muddanna X 'C'
Highlights:
 Children in this school were aware of debating unlike the other school.
 Only half of the participants spoke of alcohol & tobacco being bad without focusing on the topic.
 They spoke of how friends ridicule when someone doesn’t have the habit of drinking / smoking & how they fall prey to start the same.
 One of them made a point about how it is considered manliness to drink & someone who doesn’t is instigated to take alcohol
 The children who spoke against spoke of will power. Some said that advertisements / pictures showing such scenes should not be seen !!!?
 Overall it was a better performance considering some children volunteered on the spot though they had not given their names earlier.
At the end of the debate, Dr.Vimochana briefly explained about the points for & against the topic. They were reassured that being the first time, they had done well. They were encouraged to take part in more such talks and learn from mistakes.
Note: Mudanna from X ‘C’ who did exceptionally well compared to others was not given a first prize on purpose as he was already chosen for first prize in Letter writing competition. However, an extra consolation prize was given to him to appreciate his talent.

Acknowledgements:
We sincerely thank,
Dr. Preethi Galagali – Vice President of IAP, BPS and convener of the Adolescent chapter for initiating the idea of Teen Day celebrations in schools in order to create awareness among teenagers about Alchohol abuse.
IAP, BPS – We thank Indian Academy of Pediatrics for sponsoring the prizes.
Dr. Sudha - Pediatrician, Retired Senior specialist, Vani Vilas Hospital for organizing the event along with Dr. Vimochana.
YFS volunteers – Vyjayanthi, Bharathi, Sujatha (Report), Poornima, Sushma, Parinitha, Apeksha and Harish for coordinating and conducting the events at both the schools.
Mr. G. R. Chamnalkar - Retired Principal, Govt. School of Nursing. We thank him for his interest in extending active participation and judging the competitions in Govindarajanagar School.
Last but not the least, we thank all the teachers, staff and principals from Govt. High School, Govindarajanagar and Basaveshwara School, Mahalakshmipuram for their interest and enthusiasm to conduct the events without which the program wouldn’t have been a success.
On behalf of the entire YFS and IAP, BPS team, this report is being sent by Dr. Vimochana.