Here’s to cotton candy dreams, scraped knees and the yellow park slide… Here’s to every kid who’s on the MAD ride…
(Lessons learnt from the Make A Difference Delhi recruitment drive)
Step 1: Get together with some really enthusiastic and potentially MAD youngsters – The first round of the MAD Delhi recruitment drive for 2010-2011 was held over the last weekend of June, bringing together 32 young people from various colleges and universities to come out of their comfort zones and go MAD!!
Their energy and willingness to join the cause was evident from the fact that they were willing to travel to a relatively back-of-beyond part of Delhi and have their interviews conducted in one of the existing MAD orphanages. Needless to say, the lack of air-conditioners and other comfort-infrastructure even in the June heat was of no consequence to these potential MADsters!!
Step 2: Show them the basics of living, breathing and being MAD – The drive was a 2 day event with the first day being an introductory session on the basics of MAD. A presentation was made to the youngsters detailing the various aspects of MAD, including the inception, the cause, our existing methodology, tools and systems in place and Delhi specific information. Details about MAD’s expectations from them were also clearly laid out in this interesting and interactive session.
Step 3: Test their MAD quotient – The second day started with some fun and games as the prospective volunteers participated in various games including the name game, water game and the fashion show (which brought to light some spectacular creativity and madness from the participants!). The event ended with each team preparing a chart depicting the significance of MAD to them and was quite a wonderful revelation of the impact that the session had on the youngsters!!
Step 4: Now really test their MAD quotient (seriously!!) – The interviews were in full swing while the fun and games were on for the other hopefuls simultaneously. The intense and comprehensive interview round helped us identify the truly self-motivated and like-minded individuals who believed in our cause and were passionate about making a difference to their communities and to the world. At the end of it, we added 26 new members to our ever-growing MAD family !!
Step 5: Repeat steps 1- 4 above – The event was extremely overwhelming as the response from all the participants was very positive and encouraging! Now, for all those who are regretting having missed it this time, don’t worry – this was only the first round…and there’s more to follow…so do keep yourselves updated on all the MAD happenings…. You never know when YOU get the chance to go truly MAD!!
Originally written by Vikas Hotwani, MAD Mumbai
(Vikas – a photojournalist by profession, currently teaches at St. Catherine’s School. He is also a part of the Operations bunch.)
”Be on time. OK. No, wait.”
”Reach 15 minutes early. OK?”
‘Collect your books. OK. But do not teach. OK? Ice-breakers only. OK. But be on time. OK?”
- This, ladies and gentlemen, is what the countdown to the first MAD class looked like. There was anticipation, nervousness, excitement, MADness, and not to forget, awesome lots of fun.
Not wanting to be late (remember the first line?), we started early, lost our way – twice (thanks Trupti), but still managed to reach 10 minutes before class (yes, we are good).
We entered class, heads held high and probably having idea of WHAT we were gonna do. Let’s just go with the flow, a fellow volunteer suggested.
So we started with introductions (isn’t that the safest?), and later asked the kids to suggest a game. Now I don’t know HOW on earth we would have played kabbadi, cricket and hide-and-seek in class, but the kids seemed damn confident. Someday, we will give it a shot.
Nonetheless, we zeroed down on simpler games and the next one hour was NOT for the weak-hearted. There was noise, empty plastic bottles flying around, bunch of hyperactive kids running behind colours, and non-stop ‘Sir, Sir, Sir, Sir, Sir, Sir, Sir’. Was it tough controlling them? Who knows? We were a part of it, silly!
Next time, by the way, we will talk business. Till then, will somebody tell me HOW can we play kabbadi in class?
It’s always great to start a new year. We at KV decided to hit it off with an ice-breaker session for the kids on 19th June, 2010. Keeping in mind the spirit of MADness, we had planned for it weeks in advance and were very keen to make it a fun and memorable day for both the volunteers and the kids.
Out of the blue, Preethi decided that the volunteers should co-ordinate and come wearing Red shirts and black trousers, although I still haven’t figured out the point behind such a strange request. 
Anyway on D-day, there was a bunch of us wearing red and all prepped up to start off the new academic year! Everyone was excited and looking forward to the two hour session. The kids started walking in, excited and bubbly as usual, not to mention all over the place. It took some tough love from Rishi to settle them all quietly so that we could talk to them and explain to them what we would be doing. The kids were very excited to see the volunteers after a long break and were busy giving us thumbs up and high-fives! In the midst of all that, Suresh (one of the kids) came upto me and asked me “How are you Anna?”. Maybe he did it out of compulsion (since he knows my Tamil is horrendous) but the fact that he took the effort to come upto me and ask me that in English meant a lot to me and certainly brightened up my Saturday by a couple of 1000 watts! 
The kids were split into groups so that we could manage them easily. After a couple of minutes of coaxing and begging, they all settled down quietly. There were a couple of new entrants into the MAD family, and they were all huddling together in one corner, shy yet observant.
To get to know each other, we played the good old ‘Throw-the-ball-and-tell-your-name’ game with the kids. The shy ones slowly started opening up and in the midst of mispronounced names we all got to know each other. After that we had a lot of interesting games for kids like Treasure hunt, Dog and the bone, Burst the balloon and of course Word building. The winners were given custom-made limited edition hand bands made by the KV MAD team
At the end of two hours when it was time to wind up, the volunteers were thoroughly exhausted while the kids were hyper-active as always!
I learnt a very valuable lesson that day, never skip your breakfast on a MAD day. After sending the kids away, we all rushed off to Saravana Bhavan to refuel ourselves.
Hats off to Shruthi and Preethi for co-ordinating the whole thing. (Preethi is yet to explain the funda behind the Red dress-code) Rishi and Varun for capturing the wonderful moments on camera.
Hemanshi, Madhumitha, Anand, Mithun and Hari for making the whole thing happen. Last but not the least, our new volunteers for the year- Ananya, Abinaya,Raghav and Varsha, welcome aboard!!!!
And of course, me! For wearing a Red T-shirt (that I last wore 2 years back) to stick to Preethi’s dress-code!
- Ashwin Chandran, KV, MAD
Pune’s volunteers had their first feel of the new and improved Cambridge syllabus with the first of three rounds of teacher training completed on the 3rd and 4th of July at the Pride Silicon Plaza. The scene was set in a conference room that could scarecely contain the nervous energy of ‘the first day’ with volunteers walking in, scanning the room for familliar faces. But that was not going to last. Not for long.
Within a few minutes of our trainer Mrs Deepali who is a teacher trainer at British Council Library, walked into the room; we were all hunched over our first assignment.
Name flashcards! Suddenly there were names, pictures and hurried illustrations all over the place. We were making new friends and we didn’t even know it! It took being a jumble of animals, lost in the din our own frantic calls, to figure out that this was going to be one fast paced weekend. Roles switched around quickly. One minute we were children, wide-eyed at our workbooks; and the next we listened in mature silence as we leaned how to teach.
Lucid explanations and detailed methodology armed us with techniques of teaching like we had never seen before. If we thought we had a hold of some answers before, we were now carrying a burgeoning arsenal of class control techniques that would cage up the monster of fear, regrouping techniques that would save us the dilemma of ‘who goes in which group?’… simple ECMs ( error correction methods) ..the best part was that we were willing guinea pigs!
Oh, that was just day *one*!
Day two was a whole other ballgame. Enter: Microteaching ( and yes, it is as scary as it sounds)
*suspense track playing in the background*
Lessons assigned and groups decided, we would be teacher, student and observer and role play the day away.
Sure, it was a daunting experience: teaching twenty year old colleagues, determined to giggle like twelve year olds and ask questions that raised suspicions of ages even lower while another bunch of peers watched your every move and in scary silence, noted little comments on their sheets. But there was always the element of sincere appreciation for everything said and done. Besides, maybe the ‘classroom’ behaviour.
Everyone found something that they could do without much trouble. Everyone found out what they could do better. It was the weekend of a lifetime and to top it all off, we had found ourselves a new Bible, new friends, new techniques, new classroom confidence, new…. the list is pretty endless!
Lunch times and coffee breaks were full of chatter and hurrying back to the action. We were soldiers being called to the old battleground of teching and learning; but we weren’t going in with canes and red pens. We were getting to the task of planting happy seeds of bright learning where hope was needed most 
MAD Pune has its second and third rounds of Teacher Training on every weekend in this month! It is also resuming classes on the 9th of July. With an All Volunteer Meet planned for the 7th of July, MAD Pune is standing on the line of fire, roaring to charge into the new year!
More updates as they happen! Visit back
GO MAD!
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