There are twenty club members working with me on my action plan. Interestingly when I shared with them the name of the club “Young Citizens Environmental Club”, they suggested to replace ‘young’ with ‘global’ because they said that they are citizen of the global community and would like to contribute at a larger level. In order to give ownership to the members, the club is now named as per their suggestion “Global Citizens’ Environmental Club”.

I have already completed the first phase of my action plan in which I have facilitated teachers and students in developing their theoretical understanding about environment and environmental issues. I want to acknowledge the support of Mary Ann McGary, who on our request (I and my PELI friend  Sarah Gardezi) forwarded a very relevant website regarding environmental club. I also wish to acknowledge our facilitator Ms Unaeza Alvi,at the Aga Khan University-Institute for Educational Development, whom I met in order to take her suggestions about successful implementation of my action plan. She was very supportive, she shared with me the resource material and study guide on environmental education. I take help from both these resources and other websites in order to plan my activities.In the second phase students will be now engaged in planning and conducting school wide activities to raise awareness.

 In the pictures given below, club members are working in groups to design logo for the club. I have also given them Journals and have encouraged them to write reflections regularly. The members will focus on their learning as a result of their involvement in club activities. I see two benefits of students’ reflections. First, it will enable me to gauge their   understanding about environmental issues, secondly, it will help the club members to keep a track of their activities, successes and challenges. Let me add, that I am using grant money to buy the resource, and am really thankful to PSU-PELI, for giving us this facility to implement plans with much ease.

 Rakshanda

Hi friends,

I want to share some photographs of my visit to Lahore on 16-17 Nov 2008, in relation to a National Dialogue, organized by Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA), at the culmination of a year long project ‘Reclaiming Cultural and Social Diversity: mobilizing youth for national harmony and peace’. The project was a collaborated effort of Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), to promote citizenship education based on the rights and responsibilities of citizens.

During the project, students participated in various activities including essays writing, posters making, perception surveys and national dialogues. The final round of National Dialogue was attended by 60 students and teachers from 10 schools, representing public and private sectors from all the four provinces of Pakistan.

I contributed in this project as a project coordinator for my school. My back ground knowledge about citizenship education and my participation in this project strengthened my belief that our youth has a tremendous potential to make this world a better place. Educational institutions need to educate them about knowledge, skills and attitude required for effective citizenship.

Best regards

Rakshanda Ovais Shareef

Our sincere thanks to ITA (Idara-e-Taleem-o-Agahi) and PSU (Plymouth State University),  partner organizations, who made it possible for us to avail this wonderful learning opportunity of personal and professional growth. It was due to the tireless effort of Ms Baela Raza  and Ms Blake Allen, Directors of their respective organizations, that we as a group were able to travel with much ease.

We are equally grateful to Ms Beena Raza of ITA, for providing us valuable information during pre departure orientation sessions at Islamabad, Pakistan.

Our special thanks to Ms Blake Allen, for her constant support and encouragement during the course. Thankyou Ms Blake for making our trip a rich learning experience. The course was designed in such a manner that each and every day that we spent at New Hampshire was filled with  great learning opportunities.

Our heartfelt gratitude to all the faculty members for their unique styles of teaching, and making it possible for us to share our thoughts and learn from each other.

We will always remember people with whom we had the opportunity to discuss and share our thoughts on multiple issues. Our discussions enabled us to understand each others points of view, and to see the world from a broader perspective. 

We are grateful to all the friends who invited us to their homes and organizations on various occasions and hosted luncheon, dinner and Pizza party for us. No wonder each one of us has put on some extra weight as a result of the tasty food that we ate in those parties .

Our special thanks to our community advisers for their timely support in solving our problems.

Our thanks to the technology experts who guided us while developing our action plans with patience and smile. We are also thankful to our great photographer who captured our memories  and posted it on the website.

We appreciate the staff of Prospect Hall who always welcomed us with their smiling faces.

We are grateful to all the staff members of PSU, who provided us information during the orientation week to facilitate our smooth stay at PSU.

Our thanks to the organizers of the Plymouth Writing Project who provided us the opportunity to interact with the New Hampshire teachers and to share with each other our cultural values and traditions.

We will always remember our memorable visit to Washington D.C. We had the opportunity to visit the State Department to hold meetings with concerned authorities.

Our special thanks to our friends who invited us to concerts, and ofcourse the great opportunity to visit Arts in Education Institute.

Last but not the least, we are highly grateful to our friends, teachers of different schools of New Hampshire with whom we spend memorable time during classroom teaching and field trips. They were extremely helpful and cooperative. We can never forget the delicious and scrumptious lunch they prepared for us.

We would like to conclude on a note that our relationship does not end at the culmination of the programme, in fact it is the beginning of our everlasting friendship.