TKS ‘Little Hands Green’

Pupils beautify school’s environs

By Jamil Khan @ The Gulf Today-Sharjah, October 11, 2013

DUBAI: Children of The Kindergarten Starter (TKS), Dubai, have finally achieved what they were struggling for the last over 12 months, to get permission to convert the barren land outside their school into a lush green patch.
Having achieved that, they went on to plant over 200 saplings in front of their school’s main gate to achieve their dream of converting the area into a beautiful green piece of land.
As part of an environment and community project, a group of young students of the ‘Eco Team,’ along with their teachers and parents, initiated the project ‘little hands green’.
The event was held on Thursday at TKS in Garhoud and attended by Ibrahim Saeed, Director of Transportation Department, RTA; Hassan Mourad, Head of Planning & Development of Transportation, Dubai Municipality, along with a number of parents, teachers and the students and community members.
Asha Alexander, the school principal, told The Gulf Today that the project to convert the barren patch outside the school into a green piece of land was the effort of students who had floated the idea last year. Outside the main entrance of TKS is GGICO Metro Station where land measuring around 110m along the main road was barren.
“We approached the concerned authorities, including Dubai Municipality, Dewa and others, to allow us to have some greenery here. It took almost a year, and today, on the last day of our week-long event, ‘Seva (service) Week,’ our children went about their job planting different saplings to beautify the school’s surroundings as well as provide an aesthetic look to everyone,” Alexander said.
She pointed that throughout the week, the children were made aware of the importance they should accord to elders and about serving the community. Also, a group of students were made to work in different capacities in the school to better understand the dignity of labour.
The school has formed an ‘Eco Team’ comprising students, teachers and parents along with members from the community to organise environment-related activities throughout the year — from cleaning beaches, planting trees and raising awareness in the society.
“Last year, the Eco Team had conducted a blood donation drive besides other activities throughout the year,” she pointed out. The school, which is located in Garhoud, Dubai, has around 5,000 students.
Furthermore, last week, TKS hosted the first Dewa Workshop on Conservation for parents, staff and students. Several students — eco-ambassadors of many schools in the UAE — attended the event held on its premises. Ali Amjad Mohammad Amjad, a senior official from Dewa conducted the workshop on saving water and electricity.
Members of the KGS Green Team, Priyanka Palleri, Priya Palleri, Issac Vinu Varghese and George Mathew Paul shared methods that were adopted by the school to save water and electricity.
A webinar was conducted with students of the Karachi Grammar School, wherein students of both schools engaged in an interactive session and shared ideas on how to save water and electricity in their schools and their homes.
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Balochistan Earthquak-2013

Do not delay relief operations, PAD told

By Jamil Khan @ The Gulf Today-Sharjah, October 10, 2013

SHARJAH: The Pakistani expatriates in the UAE expressed their grave concern over the delay in the relief activities to be started by the Pakistan Association – Dubai (PAD) for the earthquake affected people in Balochistan.
In the past couple of years, PAD officials have organised a number of relief operations to benefit the affected people after a massive earthquake hit many northern parts of the country in 2005, floods in 2007 and such other calamities.
Through the contribution of community members’ different companies, the PAD had collected a huge amount of relief goods and cash donations to benefit the affected people.
Talking to The Gulf Today, community members demanded the same exercise for the thousands of people in different areas of Balochistan without any further delay.
Uzair Miyani, a resident of Dubai, said that in the last two weeks he has been visiting the PAD office in Oud Metha but no one seemed interested in any relief operation.
“Everyone knows that Balochistan has been facing a range of problems for a long time, especially insurgency. The community residing in the UAE should come forward to show the same solidarity as they did for people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on the occasion of the flood devastation and later when thousands of people were displaced after the army operations against the insurgents in 2009,” he demanded.
Miyani belongs to Quetta, the capital city of the affected province and has been running his fresh produce business in Al Awir, Dubai since 2000.
He said that there are many people in the community who are ready to take part in any type of relief activities for their brothers in need as the whole province is very poor and it is not the responsibility of the government alone to fight against all the odds on behalf of the affected people.
Kashan, a resident of Sharjah, told The Gulf Today that they were expecting some announcement from the PAD or any other body to initiate a relief operation for the earthquake affected people.
“We were under the impression that whenever our country needs us we will be ready but this time it seems that we had other important things on our agenda. We are hoping that the PAD and other community platforms will start something to remember their brethren in Balochistan before it’s too late,” he said.
The concern was put before the officials and they had their own hitches. Dr Faisal Ikram, general secretary of PAD, told The Gulf Today that earlier, the initiating of any relief operation in the Emirate was easy but now they have to comply with the local government’s instructions.
“As soon as we heard about the devastating earthquake, we approached the Red Crescent-UAE and Islamic Relief and Charitable Affairs department to obtain permission which is still pending,” he said.
Dr Ikram pointed that they have prepared their operation to develop contacts with resources on ground in Balochistan and whenever they get the permission, an appeal will be made before the community for the rehabilitation to start.  
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