Author: Alisha Coelho

One of our exceptional students, Poonam is a budding poet and a social change maker. Along with a team of students from her school, Avsara Academy, she participated in the International Changemakers Olympiad in January 2020, to tackled a relevant social issue she could identify. She and her team took sessions on anger management and stress relief for healthy behaviour practices for her peers in two schools including AIC. They reached out to at least 50 students and made a positive impact in their lives!

Here are a few poetry verses penned down by Poonam in June 2020

Dear our Mother Earth,

First of all

I don’t know how did

Humans know your gender?

What made us decide this?

And if we did

Do we take care of you

Like our Mothers?

Sometimes you are so parched

That you gulp a single rain drop in a flash of light.

You bear the scorching hot sun,

So that we could live in peace.

But we never asked you what you wanted…

We have infrastructural activities to rank ourselves number one

In economy

Every moment we plucked a flower or the whole tree

By its roots

We ignored your cries..

We spoiled your beautiful

Water bodies with our human waste

But this COVID19

Brought you in spotlight..

We are able to reflect on our selfish actions.

From now

I personally grow a small tree

Every Mother’s day

A change maker of AIC, if you wake up Parinaz, fondly known as Pari, in the middle of the night and give her a math problem, she will happily take out her books and solve it! She has been passing this enthusiasm for the subject to her beloved students at AIC for the last three years.

Managing multiple roles at AIC currently, Pari aspired to be a teacher since she was in the 10th grade and she finally believes she has the job she was made for! She enjoys being a part of the AIC family and feels a sense of belonging to the community. She aims to be a mentor to each of her students and loves to enthusiastically take on any task that is assigned to her which makes her to perfect fit for the AIC team.

“The naughtiest of the children brighten your days and the best ones give you pride. Such are the children at Ashraya!” – Parinaz