Projects undertaken at our centre at St. Stephens College - Butterflies

The children observed the different stages of the life of a butterfly.

This was done by observing the caterpillars, feeding leaves to the caterpillars. The children observed the pupa stage first hand and watched the butterflies for some weeks and then released the full grown butterfly into the sky.

They also did several worksheets on butterflies, their life-cycles and their food habits etc to get a better understanding of this concept.

Projects undertaken at our centre at St. Stephens College - Humayun's Tomb

As a part of the workshops conducted by Amaani, the team conducted a workshop on a history project. The monument which was studied as a part of this project was the Humanyun’s tomb. The tomb is inspired by Persian architecture and is indeed a pride of the India’s capital, New Delhi. Fashioned in red sandstone and marble, the tomb was built by Humanyun’s wife fourteen years after he died. The construction of Humayun’s tomb commenced in 1593.

The project was spread out in five classes which was then followed by a visit to the monument. The classes were conducted with the means of innovative tools and hands on models. The children were made to distinguish between the old and new buildings, identify the parts of the monuments, make the murals with clay. Several other activities such as worksheets of the different parts of the tomb, fun games etc were organised to help them understand the concept. This was followed by story telling sessions on the life of Humayun and the battles he fought and history behind Humanyun's tomb.

All in all, a fun experience. The children seemed much more eager to see and connect with the monument once they already had been told about its historical background and significance.

Ice-breaking session at Nehru Place

On 24th October 2011, Amaani volunteers met at a park near Nehru Place to put together a Diwali-themed ice-breaking session for our newest batch of students from the bastis around the area. Around 20-odd children showed up for the session and made rangolis with us, played the dafli and sat around talking among the diyas.

We got an opportunity to understand the levels they are currently studying at so that we may be able to help them come to the level of students from some of the best schools around Delhi.

Introducing Amaani

Although India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world and has one of the youngest populations, a large number of children remain without the opportunities to obtain education. Article 26 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees the right to education to everyone. This has been reiterated in Article 21(A) of the Indian Constitution. India has a population of over 1.21 billion and also, has the largest illiterate population in the world.

Amaani envisions being able to break past this capability deprivation and introduce the children from such financially weak backgrounds to all that the modern education system has to offer. The Community Action Program would break from the conventional class room teaching and conduct classes outdoors with hands on models and experiments. Creative and innovative methods would be used in order to facilitate growth in the child’s knowledge and imagination.

This is an initiative undertaken by the New Delhi NGO Leaps and Bounds with the British Council Switzerland, to reach disadvantaged children in various areas of the capital, where they do not have the means to receive the education and life training they need to ensure for themselves and their future generations a better standard of life.

‘Leaps and Bounds’ is an organization located in the Greater Kailash area of south Delhi. You may learn more about them at their website at http://www.leapsandbounds.in/ .
This project was the vision of Ms. Lavanya Julaniya who is an active member of Global Changemakers and she elucidates her Community Action Plan further in this article on the Global Changemakers website at http://www.global-changemakers.net/education/caps-friday-2110 .


We propose to make the children we come in contact with much more aware of their surroundings and help them reach their full potential as human beings. As an initiative, Amaani is still at a nascent stage and volunteers and any kind of help be it a good idea or an offer to teach would be greatly appreciated.

You may contact Lavanya Julaniya, the goddess of all that is Amaani at lavanyajulaniya@hotmail.com.

And me, Salil, her lowly serf at salilsinghnluj@gmail.com.