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Scooty Teen Diva India International 2008 is the first ever
beauty pageant in India for teenagers in the age group of 13 –
18yrs of age. This pageant has been developed to promote the
talent of today’s young women and provide them with a platform
to become positive role models. Over 1,500 contestants sent
their nominations in response to a nationwide invitation to
these young women. Koyal Rana winner of the first Scooty Teen
Diva India International will represent India at the Miss Teen
International 2008 to be held in Chicago USA in July.
Education for underprivileged children is a serious and
vital issue affecting a large percentage of young population. In
India, there are an estimated 140 million children in the age
group of 6-14 years in government primary schools. On a national
average about 50% of these children, do not know their basic
3R’s (Reading, writing and Arithmetic) even after four years of
schooling as below:
• 30 million cannot read.
• 40 million can recognize a few alphabets.
• 40 million can read some words.
• 30 million can read paragraphs.
• Over 55 million of these children will not complete four years
of school, eventually adding to the illiterate population of
India.
I support and work closely with the NGO pratham which is a
not-for profit organization working towards “Every child in
school, and learning well”. Since 2007, pratham has launched the
Read India campaign that aims at achieving reading and arithmetic
proficiency for children in rural schools all over India. This
campaign has spread to 351 out of nearly 600 rural districts of
India bringing about a change in the lives of close to 12
million children.
Why I chose this Cause: India is home to the largest
young population on earth: 600 million people are under the age
group of 25. This makes it extremely important to address the
issue of education among underprivileged children. I strongly
believe that the young makes the future. And what better way to
achieve it than to enrich the life of children with education.
There are many children who are unable to read, write and
perform basic skill till class VIII. I want to work towards
bringing about a change so that each child is proficient in
basic skills.
I started teaching English to a group of children from a
resettlement colony in Trilokpuri, New Delhi, India. The venue
of this class is a municipal primary school, summer classes are
organized for the children. The class begins with a revision of
previous day at the beginning of new lesson or activity followed
by bilingual words where some picture or objects are showed to
the child. It helps them speak out a word and hence build their
vocabulary. The approach also enables the children to construct
simple sentences using the newly acquired vocabulary.
Miss Teen International will provide me with the perfect
platform to address the most critical issue of children
illiteracy which is growing at an alarming rate in India and
standup for the right of every child to basic education skill.
Click on the pictures to enlarge it.
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