Volunteer Story: HR Rewards Team

**A report below from Sunita, one of our corporate affairs team in Mumbai, who, along with Scope Corporate Affairs, Scope Rewards team, Scope Goal Coordinators and our NGO partners, organised a fabulous volunteering activity in Chennai for our HR Rewads team**

It was truly everyone’s day out!



The visiting 6-member HR Rewards Team from across different regions of Standard Chartered had a fulfilling experience in Scope Chennai (a subsidiary of the Bank) on Wednesday, 28 April as they stepped out of the meeting rooms and beat the heat to spend over three hours with more than 45 Goal girls from the Saidapet community.

The visit was organized at the Scope premises where the girls spent the morning having loads of fun playing games in the company of the HR Rewards team members. The team also volunteered their time and helped the girls go through eye screening at a camp set up on the campus.

The day started with an interactive session between the girls, the Rewards team members and Scope staff volunteers. It was followed by energizers and a game of netball. The girls were split into 3 teams to play ‘Pass the Ball’. Following a brief demo by the netball coach, the girls and the team members played a short match against each other amidst loud cheers from the audience.


Later, the girls listened in awe as the team members spoke about themselves and attempted a few phrases in Tamil (local language of Chennai), which they had learnt that very morning. Three of the Goal girls and a community volunteer also shared their experience and the changes that the programme has had already brought into their lives within a short span. Prizes were distributed to the winners of the painting contest conducted in the community on 24 April. Two girls also won spot prizes for picking up trash and dropping them into the bin as health and hygiene forms an important part of the Goal programme.

``We have never had it so good,” expressed the girls, for whom it was the first ever visit to a corporate. The day ended with a Pizza lunch.

Many thanks to our HR Rewards Team comprised Paul S., Steven W.I.L., Steve G, Lindsay P. Leonard O., Sai R. and Usha G. Also thanks to our Corporate Affairs team, Scope Rewards team; Scope Goal coordinators; and our NGOs – NAZ, Nalamdana and YRGCare- for providing a great day!

Well done Neha!

If you're a frequent reader of this site, you know how much we love to brag about Neha, a former Goal Champion in Delhi. Neha was one of our original Goal Girls from back in 2006, and we have been so proud to watch her star rise.

Just to give you an update, Neha has been selected for  on year Diploma Course in "Health Profession including Nursing" in US.  She will be joining a Community College Program by the American Embassy in June of this year.

Congratulations!

Volunteer Story: Meenakshi - now with video!

You remember we introduced you to Meenakshi, one of our volunteer coordinators in Delhi. This week Standard Chartered launches a brand new website for staff to match with volunteer opportunities. As part of this we profiled star volunteers around the world, including Meenakshi. Enjoy!

Update from Skoll

I'm back from Skoll and making it through my notes and many follow ups. It was really an amazing event, and although I would have liked more of a focus on women and girls, we did get a shoutout in a great opening session where a representative of the Ministry of Education in Zambia, Camfed, and Linklaters, talked about the importance of being accountable to the girls you serve.

Just to give a shoutout here to a few great organisations I came across:

• The Belinda Stronach Foundation of Canada, who are sponsoring the G(irls)20 Summit
• Kashf Foundation in Pakistan
• McCall MacBain Foundation whose innovative strategy links grants and investments

More to come! Check out my tweets from the event too!

IWD Update: Delhi (Aali Gaon)

Don't mess with a Goal girl!

International Women’s day was celebrated with an interesting and different session at Aali Gaon, Goal Delhi.

The focus of the session was self defense, an issue which is highly relevant for the girls in the community. Often the girls have expressed their discomfort while traveling from their homes to the programme site as they are teased by the boys in the community. In addition these girls were also scared to board the Delhi public transport buses, as they have heard stories of all kind of harassment faced by girls on the roadways.

Thus the Goal team thought it important to have a session of self defense to build their self confidence and equip the girls to make themselves safe

30 Goal participants participated in the 2 hour training. The resource person was Mr. Yash Narain from the All India Karate Federation. He has a black belt in kick boxing, and Taekwando. In the two hours of the session, he taught the girls basic punching, kicking, defense etc. He also demonstrated few difficult techniques, which they could use with some practice. He explained how one actually should hit at weaker parts of the body to have a better impact.

Meenakshi and Seema , Volunteer Coordinators from Standard Chartered Bank too participated enthusiastically in the session along with the girls. Seema, who had also undergone a similar training when she was a teenager shared her personal experiences of making use of self defense techniques and inspired the participants.

The volunteers had brief discussion on how one should avoid visiting risky places. They advised that if girls sensed something wrong, ideally they should leave from the situation. Seema added that, in certain problematic situation, it is better not to argue, but find ways to reach safe place. Meenakshi highlighted the importance of disclosing the threat to a adult whom they could trust. Certain tips like keeping chilli powder/pepper spray to dissuade the perpetrator were also discussed with the girls.

The Goal team has taken up the challenge to continue practicing the kicks and punching during netball exercises for few days. On the whole girls felt happy and more confident in handling difficult situation.

Skoll World Forum 2010

If you follow us on Twitter, you'll know that Goal is spending the week at the Skoll World Forum 2010. This is one of the most exciting gatherings of social entrepreneurs in the world, and we're so thrilled that we have the opportunity to be there.

You can follow the Skoll website throughout the week for videos, blogs, and podcasts. We'll try to update you when we can!

Richa victorious!

We want to offer a big Goal congratulations to Richa our Gold medalist from the recent Punjab National Netball Games. Richa is one of our coaches in Delhi. See the full report below. Well done Richa!


Goal Delhi Coach Richa wins a gold medal!

The 29th Senior Netball National Championship was held on 25th to 28th March 2010 at Punjab (Fatehgarh Sahib). It was a proud moment for Goal when Richa Bisht (Goal Coach) was selected as a Captain of the team. The event began with an opening ceremony.

In the tournament, all teams were divided in to 4 pools: A, B, C, D and the Delhi team was in pool B. Delhi had four matches in its pool: against Uttrachal, Manipur, Chandigarh and West Bengal. Delhi had a quarterfinal match with Karnataka, which was one of the toughest teams. The first half was tough but he Delhi Team discussed the points and gave feedback to the players and motivated them so that they could build their self confidence. The adjustments made by senior players and coaches for the second half led to a victory over a strong team. The Semifinal match was against Andhra Pradesh. It was an exciting, well played; back and forth game between both teams and the final score was Delhi-25 and Andhra Pradesh-19. The performance of the players was also encouraging. The final match was against Kerala. Both teams were in full form, and finally Delhi won the finals.

The event ended with the closing ceremony where the Delhi team received a trophy and Gold Medal from the Chief Guest. Richa said:

“It was a great tournament and I’m happy and proud of our 3rd win in the last three senior national netball tournaments. In the finals, Kerala was a very aggressive team and the players were also quite tall! But we were happy with our overall performance. I am very proud of my own game: I suffered a mild back injury during training, but was still able to captain the team to victory. I am very happy because I feel like I gave more than my 100% for this game.”

Global Girl News: 10 April

• There are 3.3 billion girls and women in the world. What's your number? We are 1693. Find out at the G(irls)20 Summit site.

• Attend an upcoming E-Conference about Girls’ Education put on by the E4 Engendering Empowerment: Education and Equality initiative to discuss girls education, violence, poverty, climate change, and health.

• Plan USA sent three teenage girls to report on the UN's Commission on the Status of Women this year. Read their insightful and fun blog posts.

• We think the Deloitte Street Child World Cup is a super cool event. Check out the summary and videos of the event.

Volunteer Story: Deepti

*A letter I received from Deepti, one of our volunteer coordinators in Delhi*

Just to share my experience of being associated with Goal, I have to take you back 2 years down to the nostalgic moment when I first got associated with this programme and was asked to participate in TOT(Train the Trainers)wherein it was told that i have to address and train the community girls who come from an underprivileged backgroundand are not exposed to the outside world.

During my conversation with them, I was amazed at the ooze of excitement and confidence reflected by those girls who have been trained in those sessions and have got tremendous confidence to speak publicly and the zest to live life. In fact, for a moment I thought I was addressing the wrong audience (I assumed them all to be shy, timid). Goal indeed has made their life through netball entirely different and has given them all an opportunity to develop their inherent talents, to educate themselves and to know whats happening around them.

I really consider myself lucky for being associated with this programme and giving my inputs to the girls from time to time as well as learning from them.

Goal has definately taken a right step in the direction of educating and developing not only the girls but also their entire families as it is said, teaching a girl is teaching the whole family and the same gets reflected in the results coming from the initiative.

I would like to highlight what the learned John F Kennedy once said:

Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

Indeed Goal is an excellent platform to bring out the girls from their homes and giving them an informal platform to develop the skills of leaders and learning ahead.

Warm Regards
Deepti Suri
Relationship Manager
Premium Banking
Standard Chartered Bank