On 15th August, 2009, the Riverside School promoted India’s largest Design for Giving Contest for school children.
Through a simple toolkit that was translated into 8 languages, they reached over 30,000 schools and around 100,000 children (rural, urban, private and public) The competition focused on 10 to 13 year olds with the sole purpose of changing the perception of children being ‘helpless’ to seeing children as ‘drivers of change’. For a TED talk about the contest, see here.
This year, the Riverside School wishes to spread their agenda worldwide. They have already identified close to 20 co-ordinators around the globe are actively looking for partners in Finland who can liase with schools around the country, translate the toolkits into Finnish, fundraise for potential sponsors, implement the contest with a local flavor, and tell the story of the contest as powerfully as they can. The volunteer’s role will involve communication with schools, sponsors, local media, and some web management – a great opportunity for leadership and creativity across several disciplines.
The project leader for Finland is Pavan Ramkumar. He is a researcher and PHD student from Aalto School of Technology. For questions, please contact Pavan Ramkumar.
