Chitkara International School (CIS) participated in the World’s Largest Design for Change Contest organized by the Riverside School, Ahmedabad for schools all over the world. In this contest the students needed to work in one area which is a cause of concern in their locality or city and we are proud to share that Chitkara International School has been awarded a Special Jury Mention Award, 2010. Around 2, 50,000 children across the world participated.

The jury process was divided into three stages.

• Each entry was assessed by two judges in the first stage - and the scores from this process decided if the entry can move to the next stage.
• The entries that reached the second stage were assessed by a panel of 3 judges - each panel comprised two designers and one expert from a non-design background.
• The final stage had all the judges coming together to decide the finalists across all panels.

Chitkara International was invited for the award ceremony at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad on 28th November, 2010 (Saturday). Mr. Rahul Bose the famous actor/activist and the brand ambassador for The Design for Change contest awarded the students. Our two students along with their coordinators attended the award ceremony. All the students from different schools shared their ideas of how they worked in bringing a change in their locality.

The students of CIS feel that the biggest problem that our city Chandigarh is facing is the problem of parking. So, to implement and share their ideas on how this problem can be solved they went to Sector 8, Chandigarh parking area and worked on the cause. On 28th September, 2010 five student of grade 5 –Aashish Raizada, Maanvi, Mankaran Singh Chahal, Surbhi Uniyal and Hritik Sahrma along with their teachers went to the Madhya Marg parking area Sector 8 and spoke to all the leading outlet owners. They discussed the problem of parking which most of the people are facing in the present time. They also asked the shopkeepers and people to take a pledge that they would always park their vehicles at the right place allotted.

On 29th September 2010 the students with the support of the parking contractor worked on the parking area by putting proper parking lines in the car parking and the two-wheeler parking area. The students wanted to convey the message that we all should contribute our bit towards the society.

The principal of Chitkara International School Ms. Niyati Chitkara feels that a lot of problems can be solved if every individual moves forward and feels the responsibility on working towards the betterment of the society. She appreciated the effort of the students participating in the contest.