Social Experience

Now there are over 500 trees planted on various school campuses.
And the number of Sholas (indigenous trees) is ever increasing...

Every Saturday the Green team gathers to plant Shola trees, visit nurseries, organic farms and promote environmental awareness through various campaigns.

In preparation for a planned "bin labelling" day, students created stencils to be used for spray painting labels and pictures on the bins.

Paper power team collects flat sheets of paper from dedicated paper baskets in the classrooms and dorms and delivers them to the SOEX office.

Used paper is transferred to the Polio home for recycling. Blank sheets of paper from partially used notebooks are used to make new notebooks.

Mercy Home is a home for destitute elderly people, situated on Middle lake road in Kodaikanal.

It presently houses 18 residents providing them with basic food shelter and clothing.

There is an urgent need for better infrastructure (bedding, lighting, plumbing) and better medical care (consultations and specialist referrals eg: Eye care, Hearing aids, Cardiology consults; preventive medicine and screening including bone densitometry; dental care; medicines for Epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, Hypertension, Arthritis, Osteoporosis, etc; ). Footwear, toiletry items, duvets, frame walkers etc are also needed.

A kitchen garden is being nurtured to supplement their diet and a herb garden is planned to provide for simple home remedies.

KIS students visit Mercy home every weekend and interact with the residents. The emotional bonding that takes place benefits both the residents as well as the students and activities include playing caroms, collecting firewood, massages for aching limbs, etc.

The Mercy Home experience continues to be an enriching educational experience for our students and a pillar of support to the residents.

I think it makes good sense as Christine has suggested to start with one grade for renovation, class 6. The entryway to this area (pictured) needs paint, lighting, and to have the floor re-leveled for good drainage. The three classrooms (2 measuring approx. 18 x 21 ft, the 3rd measuring approx. 18x25 ft.) comprising this grade all need;

The narrow alley leading to classroom 6c should be paved, the walls painted a bright color, roof and ground drainage on the rear of the building near the entrance to classroom 6c needs to be checked and repaired and modified as necessary.

The main multi-purpose building had most of its windows broken, creating a very depressed air to the school. Broken panes should be replaced by shatter resistant plexi, or glass protected by wire mesh on the outside. The stage area in this room also desperately needs repair.

Social Experience Workshops

workshop on leadership (Ginosko consultants)

Youthrise leadership workshop

Food Distribution

To Shenbaganur Orphanage & Mercy Home

Food distribution teams distribute excess food from the school kitchen to the needy. Every Saturday a team of 5 students accompanied by a staff member loads dekchis (vessels) into a jeep and distributes the food to Mercy Home and the Shenbaganur orphanage, returning with cleaned, empty dekchis. The delighted reception that the team gets at these residences serves as a reminder to our students that food must always be respected and wastage minimized.

Polio Home

The importance of recycling

India‘s economy is growing rapidly, as well as India‘s piles of rubbish. With every piece of plastic we throw away we add to the colossal problem of waste disposal.
“However if everyone makes a small difference, then all the small differences can make a whole big difference. - An ocean is a waterbody made of many droplets of water----”

The workers from Kodaikanal‘s Polio Home show us a way to combat the piles of rubbish.
They use old paper to make new living accessories.
Rising like a phoenix, old newspaper and books are transformed into a variety of new products like mirrors, curios made of shells, frames and bags that can refurbish everyday life. And the best part of it:

Everything is recyclable!

Multimedia Competition

"SoEx" Multi-Media Competition

We had more than 60 presentations on a wide range of human rights, social justice and environmental issues of global, regional and local importance. Many of them are of professional quality and we’re in the process of finding a way to share them with the larger KIS community.

1st Place (20) BOW House Points and brand new KIS Sweatshirts
Blue House - 11th Graders: Yash Malvi, Satvik Thaker and Abhijeet Singh with “Just Say NO to Plastics”
2nd Place (10) BOW House Points each (2-way tie)
Blue House - 12th Graders: Teddy Murphy, Sanam Rawal , Leif DeJong, Charlie Mohl and Naina Chhiber with “Child Labor in Kodaikanal”
White House - 11th Graders: Amba Buske, Maisha Maliha, Mrija Gupta and Mehar Malik with “Social Problems Facing Women in South India”
3rd Place (5) BOW House Points each (3-way tie)
White House -12th Graders: Rachel Laitflang and Imcha Longchar with “Gymkhana”
Blue House - 11th Graders: Yasha Paul, Ji-Hye Park and Niorn Pipatanatiganant with “Illiteracy”
White House - 11th Graders: Ishaan Misra and Geeta Bhambhani with “Black Planet”