In 2016 Habs Girls and Parikrma decided to join forces in a collaborative project. The idea behind this was to recognise students from both schools as Global Citizens, to share ideas and work together on a range of projects and ideas. This is an ongoing project that we both hope will develop and grow over the years to come.
It all started with some pen pal letters between students aged 9 and 10. Trying to get them matched up across the two organisations wasn’t very easy but we did manage a few letter swaps – along with gifts, sweets, photographs and whatever else could be squashed into an envelope.
We then decided to try and swap some art, with students from both schools sending each other small pieces of art. At Habs we decided to display these and to update the work on a yearly basis. The artwork from Parikrma is amazing and the Habs students were very impressed. Parikrma artwork is now displayed all over Habs.
In return for the lovely art from Parikrma we decided to send over 15 boxes of exercise and reading books for the Junior College and younger students. They weighed an absolute ton but we know that they were well received in Bangalore. Books are so important for any learning and our students loved the pictures of their books being read by the Parikrma pupils.
As we went along we realised that we had so much in common. Habs is a Girls’ School and dancing is very popular…but not as popular as it is at Parikrma. We were thrilled to have Parikrma students dancing in the House Dance Competition (via Skype) but Parikrma are the experts.
After the dancing we thought it would be a great idea to read a book together. An author called Sita Brahmachari agreed to host a joint Skype book group to discuss her book, Jasmine Skies. This was an exciting and moving session which Sita still talks about when she visits other schools.
In September 2017 we decided that enough was enough – Skype is fine, email is okay but we decided it was high time we visited Parikrma. Plans were made, dates were finalised and July 2018 seemed to be the best time to come. The students went to India for two weeks and spent one of those weeks with the students from Parikrma. It was amazing – the Habs students learnt so much from the Parikrma students and both groups had so much in common. The same values, ambitions, thirst for knowledge and love for life was evident from students from such diverse backgrounds.
At Christmas we held a sale of their amazing pots at our school – we sold 32 of them along with 100 bookmarks. Whilst the joint collaboration is the most important part of this project we are still keen to raise money for Parikrma where can.
We are already looking forward to our next visit this year.
