Somaiya Social Cell organizes Great Future Cup - Underarm cricket for Discovery Channel

The Discovery/Fox channel crew had set up camp in Mumbai and were on the lookout for a partner to help document Gully cricket and Underarm cricket in India. This program called 'An Aussie Goes Bolly' (AAGB II) is a sequence to a very famous soap on cricket, AAGB. The protagonist, Mr.Gus Worland is a cricket fanatic from Australia who has become a celebrity of sorts after the runaway success of 'An Aussie Goes Balmy' (AAGB) series back home. AAGB I covered the cricket fever in England. The Fox team finally contacted the Somaiya Social Cell to help do a documentary on Underarm cricket and organize a cricket match for them in the Somaiya grounds.


Our Role

The Somaiya social cell members arranged the venue, facilitated the video shoot in the neighboring underserved community and organized the cricket match on 16th October 2007. The team involved the cell members, people from the community and the fox team. The teams were formed to reflect the best teams in the World cricket, namely Australia and India. All in all, we formed the interface between the Fox team and the community. The idea was to bring out the passion for the game that thrives even at the lowest levels. The prizes were sponsored by the TV crew.

The Match

The match was played for 10 Overs. Mr.Gus Worland was the captain of the 'Australian' team and Mr.Kaushik (from Discovery) was the captain of 'Indian' team. The Social Cell members who participated in the match were Aravind VS, Aarti Bhandari, Akhila Sekhar and Satyam. Anand Ramachandran from the Social cell was the umpire. The toss was won by the Australian team and they chose to bat. The opening batsmen Deepak and Gus sent the Indian fielders running on their toes and the bowlers were finding it hard to get the batsmen out. Eventually Gus got out. Deepak showed a good performance at the crease and at the end of 10 overs, Australia managed 93 runs. India started losing early wickets with the captain Kaushik getting out. Slowly wickets started falling and India was all out for 60 runs. It seems even in under arm cricket India has to go a long way to reach the standards of Australia.


The match evoked a lot of interest from the community

The awarding ceremony of the Somaiya Social Cell 'Future Cup' was presided by Social Cell mentor, Mrs. Radha Iyer, who congratulated both the teams for their enthusiastic participation. Deepak from the Australian team was declared 'Man of the Match'. Akhila Sekhar from the Indian team was declared 'Woman of the Match'. Both of them were awarded with a VIP- Lounge ticket to view the Future Cup cricket between Australia and India to be held on 17th October in Mumbai. The match ended with a big round of applause from the audience for the Social cell team and the Fox team.



The fox team, just before the shoot...

The Publicity

The match was a huge crowd puller, with lot of spectators ranging from school children to the local workers. All the people who passed by had a look and enquired about the whereabouts and did not budge until they had seen at least some part of the match. The people from the community, the volunteers from the Social Cell as well as the Discovery/Fox team actively took part in the initiative and were able to enjoy each and every moment of the game. After the match, the Media team interviewed Mrs.Radha Iyer and Anand Ramachandran about the activities of the Social Cell and about the Indian element which the Australians should carry home after their assignment in India.


Somaiya Social Cell members with Gus Worland and team

The posters portraying the Somaiya social cell were put up in places which ensured high visibility. The banners as well as the labels(which were stuck to the t-shirts of the players) were explicit and they added to the publicity. We have also established good contacts with the Media team which can be leveraged to cover any social events in future. Almost all the people who passed along the place or who were living there came to know of our effort in organizing the match and more than that, the name of Somaiya Social Cell had become the common name of the neighboring areas of the Somaiya College.
More on Gus Worland and the Barmy Army:


http://www.granadaproductions.com.au/auba.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2006/11/23/scbrig23.xml

Project Warli

WARLI

The Art

Warli paintings, have originated out of the life and rituals of the Warli tribe. This simple yet vivid painting style is believed to have originated sometime around the tenth century A.D. However, considering its simplicity in form and figure, it can be assumed to be dating back to the Neolithic period between 2,500 BC and 3,000 BC. Warli paintings express everyday life using extremely basic object forms and just one color - white - on a sober mud base. The appeal of these unicolor compositions with elementary object forms lies in their lack of pretentiousness in conveying the profound. Each painting is usually an entire scene that contains various elements of nature including people, animals, trees, hills etc. Decorative patterns inspired by nature are also used. The themes are often repetitive and symbolic in nature. Warli Unlike any other school of painting does not use mythical or religious iconography. Rather it rejoices in the celebration of simple folk life and its mundane customs.

The tribe

Dahanu, (Maharashtra) happens to be one of the very few remaining habitats of the Warli tribe. The Warlis who number about 300,000 in populations in Dahanu taluka own only 45,000 acres of land of the total acreage. They are mostly marginal and landless laborers and work in the commercial fruit orchards of the prosperous farmers in the region, or in brick kilns in nearby towns. The Warlis remain quite unassimilated from the rest of India; they maintain their own dress style, customs, religion and ceremonies. They have gained recognition only for their unique work of art, known the world over as Warli Painting.

The artist
Jayesh, a 16 year old boy, is very shy and speaks through his paintings. He keeps on drawing paintings for hours and hours. He got introduced to Warli art through his family. He has developed his skills because of encouragement from school and professional training provided from them. He is an aspiring candidate for Elementary examination of Drawing and wants to be a renowned Warli artist.


Jayesh displaying the painting, alongside SIMSR students

The Nareshwadi Residential School

The GVPM School is located on a 270-acre campus. It provides free schooling and residential facilities for the tribal children who come from villages as far as 25 kms. It runs from class 1 through 10 (secondary school) and has 13 trained teachers. The GVPM has introduced several initiatives towards child-centered learning and ensures an integrated approach incorporating classroom curriculum with exposure to agriculture, horticulture, dairy and promotion of the indigenous Warli Art through daily activities embedded in the time-table.

Somaiya Social Cell (SIMSR)

The initiative by the Social cell of SIMSR (Somaiya) is playing the role of a catalyst. It has exposed the skills of Jayesh - the painter to the outside world. The money collected from this painting will be used for further education of Jayesh and to fulfill his dreams of being a Warli artist by providing him the best available training and exposure.

One of the paintings sold by the students

Girivanavasi Pragati Mandal

Girivanavasi Pragati Mandal (GVPM) was established on September 20 1974 by Padmabhushan Shri Karamshibhai J. Somaiya (May 16 1902-May 09 1999) with the objective of setting up an integrated rural development model of education, health, agricultural development and economic self-reliance for the tribal community in the Dundhalwadi area (about 120 kms. from Mumbai) of Dahanu Taluka, Thane District in Maharashtra. The area where the project operates is called Nareshwadi. It is recognized as a voluntary organization by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India and is a registered Public Charitable Trust; registered with the Sub-Registrar of New Delhi, (Registration No. 4431 dated 27th September 1974).

Pehel

Pehel is an initiative started by students of SIMSR(2007-2009 batch) in the New Hostel as an interaction between the SIMSR students and the children of construction workers in the campus to aid them in their studies and teach them basic civic values. The objectives of Project Pehel are to -

• Teach basic civic values to the children, like hygiene, way of greeting etc.
• An introduction to basic primary education including games and crafts
• Creating general awareness about discipline, nation, famous personalities etc.

Attending classes at Sunrise!

The Children:

There are around 10 children of age group 4- 10 yrs. Around 30% of them have attended schools but have discontinued now because of the nature of job of their parents. The remaining (esp girls) were never sent to school.

Class in Progress.

What we do ??

We are a team of around 20 people. A batch of three has a duty on a day of a week and we teach the scheduled subject on the timetable. So we have 6 batches teaching the children. We teach them the basics of English, Hindi and Maths and apart from them we also teach arts and crafts. On Sundays, we arrange for some children's movie or games. Apart from regular studies, we try to conduct events for the kids.

For Independence Day, the children were encouraged to colour and make flags. The children held these flags and were all witness to the Flag Hoisting ceremony held on campus. While the ceremony was held with all fanfare, a small group of the public moved over to talk to the children curious to know why they had come over. The children sang the National Anthem to the small crowd that had gathered by; it was quite easy to see the pride on the gleaming small faces.......


Many people turned up to listen to the children.

Vande Mataram ...