Adhyapana Team at the CSR Conclave

The Adhyapana Team attended a CSR Meet at Anekal organized by Erin Foundation on the 31st of January 2010. The meet was chaired by Martin chairman of the CSR company, Austria and Task Group Leader within ISO for the writing of the ISO 26 000 standard on Social Responsibility. We left Bangalore on Saturday evening to Usha Kirana, the training facility of Erin Foundation, situated near Pearl valley, surrounded by lush greenery. The ride was an enjoyable experience through the newly inaugurated elevated highway connecting Bangalore and electronic city.

On Saturday evening, all of us met over dinner and bonfire and discussed the agenda for the next day's meeting. The Meet started early on Sunday morning. In the first two sessions Martin explained, the meaning of CSR(Corporate social responsibility), the need for CSR,what constitutes CSR etc. Through various examples he explained how an organization must approach CSR.He pointed out that Social responsibility actually encompassed a lot of activities such as responsibility towards environment, labor issues, ethics in operation etc..
He went on to explain how these are encompassed into the new ISO standard to ensure that all companies implement social responsibility.

After Martin's session, which included some heated discussions, we moved on to presentations by individual organizations about their activities.We had some interesting presentations from Karuna trust regarding their extensive work in health care and tribal people. We too presented our work which was well appreciated by all present. We then got to hear about the CSR activities at Tech. Mahindra and how doctors started a free clinic for the uninsured in America. The meeting concluded with a wrap up session by Martin.

The meet was a wonderful opportunity for us to learn more about social responsibility. We understood the working of other organizations . The meet exposed us new perspectives and valuable experience.

Role Play

In our second class of advanced communication skills, we decided to introduce some more fun into the class. We split the class into teams of 5 students each and ask them to enact a scene from everyday life. The students were given a hour to come up with a 5 -10 minute act.

Exactly after an hour we started with the role-plays.Various topics were chosen by different teams.Surprisingly many teams centered their act around social messages. topics varied from property disputes to anti-social elements in society.The winning portrayed the problems faced by 2 Indians in a foreign country.

The students thoroughly enjoyed themselves.Some were natural actors while for many other it was their first acting stint.However the learning from the activity were many.

The students were out of their comfort zone and were still able to perform well. This helped boost their confidence and reduced stage fear.

This was an attempt to provide the students with the opportunity to organize themselves into a working team. The students took the responsibility to come up with the topics for the act, the dialogues, roles, etc.

More importantly it was a great learning with respect to time management.To manage all this in under an hour was indeed a great achievement.

The students learnt the importance of team work, the different situations that they might encounter when working in a team, how to manage dominating people, how to guide a team to success etc.

Overall it was a very pleasurable experience for all of us. We enjoyed ourselves a lot and were glad that this new way of learning to communicate was well appreciated by everyone.

Effective Communication Skills 1

We have just finished a class of Effective communication skills for the students of Katalyst.This was a fun-filled training.The students are in their semester vacation and we felt that the best way to enhance their communication skills was through activities.

On the first day we provided the students with all the required stationery and asked them to come up with a presentation on any topic of their choice.The students were given approximately an hour to plan their activities .We allowed then to form their own groups and plans.The only condition was that every member of the group must speak during the presentation.The raw materials included chart paper, sketch pens and crayons.

We were amazed at the different topics chosen and the creativity exhibited by the students.The topics ranged from recession and its effects to Natural Farming to Call centers.Surprisingly each team presented for atleast 5 minutes and had distributed the responsibilities well.The activity was also a lesson in planning and time management. Many teams planned for nearly 45 minutes and then had to prepare the presentation in the remaining 15 minutes.The activity also exposed the students to team work and its pros and cons.

Judging the presentation was a very difficult task with most presentations being very good.We finally selected a presentation on call centers for its creativity and presentation skills.The feedback for the activity was very encouraging with the students suggesting that it helped them overcome their stage fear and increased confidence in their presentation capabilities.
We are now looking forward to next class of communication skills where we intend to try another new activity.

Dream Job

An article about finding the right job written by Samarth appeared in the Educational supplement of the Deccan Herald on 7th January 2010.The article discusses how to identify the right job and what should students do to find a job of their liking.The complete article can be found in the following link:-
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/45288/land-right-job-keep-it.html