Young people and Chennai's heritage

I believe in passing on the rich culture, heritage and values of one generation to the next so that they are perpetually preserved. In any community or any country!
I felt glad that the Madras Day movement too believed in it , when I became part of it in early 2005.
Vincent D' Souza and I chalked out contests that would make the young people participate and worked on simple rules for the contests. Among the contests, one was on Chennai's heritage for the school kids which required them to make models of landmarks and they kids told the story on the spot to the visitors. This contest was part of the Madras Day events of the previous year, when the celebrations were first initiated by the trio - S. Muthiah, Vincent D' Souza and Sasi Nair and was supported by INTACH. (The quiz was another and is being continued from 2004.)

I observed that kids from far away schools were bringing the models, charts and other materials to assemble at the spot, by autorickshaws, cars and school vans. I thought the monitors and mouse would fascinate the kids as they fascinate even people like me and thought of making it a presentation on the computer by the next year.
But, we weren't very sure of the gizmos in 2006 and wanted to test it before we make the kids do the presentations. So we took another year to make it happen.
It was a pleasure to view the presentations on the LCD screen in 2007. Now the documents on CDs would live on forever, we thought!
For the second year, the multimedia presentation contest on Chennai heritage was held this year at Sastri Hall in Mylapore on Aug. 19.
Twenty teams from schools across the city - from Tiruvottiyur to Tiruvanmiyur participated in the contest. The school teams presented their work one after the other. All the other teams watched them with interest and curiosity. This is the power of visual medium!
By the end of the week, we received a report at YOCee's small office on the presentation contest from one of the participants. Read the report, straight from the horses mouth!

Another event was not a contest but an experience!
Two schools - P. S. Senior Secondary and Sri Sankara Vidyashramam from south Chennai travelled to the northern part of the city. On the Fun Bus (courtesy : Ashok Leyland) guided by Swahilya.
A young boy took down notes of all that they saw during their trip and mailed a report. Wonderfully neat and nice! Here's his report!

I am happy for two reasons - one is for being part of a movement which gives me hope that all is well at the hands of the youth and the other is that I could provide a platform for the reports by the kids on such events that would be documents forever.
I could be present and be part of the events in a very limited way this year though, due to personal reasons.