The Kickst’art Challenge which was
organised through the U.S Consulate General Chennai, from September 25th
to 26th at Hotel Raj Park, Chennai. This program was inaugurated by
Consul General Phillip Min. It was two-day workshop on empowering students with
leadership skills. It was conducted by Mr.Arun Krishnamurthy, head of
Kickst’art program.
It is a six month project which will be
guided and inspired by alumni mentor who are subject experts and at the end of
six-month. U.S Consulate General, Chennai will host a public valedictory event
to showcase students’ successful projects, and will award graduation
certificates
Unfortunately I wasn’t got the opportunity
to attend the inauguration due to college exams but I joined the workshop
little after lunch. It was a wonderful program. First, the students were
separated into groups of 6 to 8 students. The first day, comprised of a
hand-full of activities were we learned about time-management, how effective is
public-speaking, what is to be a leader, how to be a leader and why to be a
leader? It really fun to meet up with different colleges students and discuss
something apart from studies. The first day concluded with all of students are
requested to write their names under different areas where we want to show our
leadership and for example areas like, science, politics, sports, music etc.
and my name was under Politics. Before winding up the first day Mr.Arun
requested as to choose any areas where we want to show some change as a small
group and to think of it more and the next would start with that. So, we decide
to do some change in paper recycling and the first day ended successfully.
The second day, again I was unfortunate due
my college exams. But this time I reached it little before lunch and joined the
group and they were discussing about ‘General project planning’. Assuming that
we were given sum amount of money and we are requested to spread the awareness
about the problem and give solution to the people and request them to follow it
in a period of 60 days. We sketched the plan pretty effectively. So, after lunch
was the mentor introducing session, people from various different fields were
present like a chief newspaper editor, a scientist ,few number of classical
dancers, few notable Rotary members in Chennai and a couple of college
professors, a couple of top school principals of Chennai and a cultural office
head of famous museum/cultural center . Each gave a 2-minute long introduction and
what they can do for us in supporting and what they wanted us to support. So,
after that Mr.Arun wanted us to discuss about the area which we choose to show
some change for few minutes. So, as we decided early we were discussing about
the paper recycling methods and areas where to begin with. Then we were allowed
to discuss about our group projects with the mentors continued with a
tea-break. It was really exciting to talk with a few personalities who were
not-so famous but they were part of many great things. My favorite was a
Mr.Vinoth Soloman who was a Chief Member of South Indian Chamber of Commerce
was one of main person in rebuilding the traders route called ‘Silk Road’ and
also Mrs.Vasanthi Ranganathan was a notable Rotarian who organised a numerous
‘Clean Drive’ and also cleaning of the freshwater lakes and ponds around
Chennai. I was really grateful to meet these people. So, after your talk with
mentor and tea-break we came back into the last session where we are requested
to write down a six-month plan of what we are going to do about our
project(‘Paper Recycling’), starting with learning the project and then onto
executing it. We are also requested to allot who is going to do what work, for
this project within the group. So, the session ended with a little advice and a
good luck note for our projects.
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