Sahayta charitable welfare society organizes anti tobacco declamation contest for school children: Sahayta charitable welfare society, organized an inter school declamation contest on harmful effects and impact of tobacco, pan, bidi, gutka, hukka etc at St. Stephens School, Sec 45 here. Sixty-two schools of Chandigarh participated in the competition.
Students of classes 9th, 10th and 11th presented their views on the subject in either Hindi or English and the Chief Guest was Dr Sushmita Goshal, Professor & Head, Radiotherapy Department, PGI Chandigarh. She was highly impressed with the depth & knowledge shown by students in their short yet expressive speeches on the subject.
The Judges for the contest were Sartaj Lamba – a woman entrepreneur and Chairperson , AJ Group , Meenu Gupta -VP, Deleuze Studies, Pritpal Halwari – Former Associate Professor, Government College of Education, Ranju – an active member of senior citizens association, Chandrakala Jain – who works with tribal artists and Rupinder Arora – who works with the NGO Nivedita3D.
Renu Saigal, President, Sahayta Charitable Welfare society said, “I am happy to announce that the society is working closely with government schools to conduct awareness programmes in different government schools on the ill effects of drug addiction, tobacco usage etc. The education department has already sent out letters to government schools in this regard. Our volunteers will be going to these schools to spread awareness on the issue, in fact we have already covered a few schools and the rest we will be doing, gradually through the year.”
It is noteworthy that May 31 is celebrated as ‘No Tobacco Day’ worldwide, every year. Due to the excessive use of tobacco, cigarettes, beetle nut excessive damage is being caused to humans and the surroundings, keeping this in perspective Sahayta Charitable Welfare Society is holding various awareness programmes. The declamation contest was one in the series of awareness activities.
The winners were: (First prize) Araghya Sharma, KBDAV and Shreya Chawla, St. Joseph; (Second prize) Tanisha, GMSSS 21 and Joginder, GMSSS-26; (Third prize) Harleen Kaur, Shishu Niketan-22 and Ishani Jaiswal, DPS. Padma and Riti from Institute of Blind, Sector -26, Chandigarh also got special prizes.
Consolation prizes were given to: Aditi Thakur, DC Montessori School; Nishika, GMH School-38; Muskan Bisht, Guru Nanak Public School; Khushpreet, AKSIPS-41 and Varsha, I S Dev Samaj School, Sector 21.