On 11 February 2023, Project Saksham, a student-led initiative of Tagore International School, Vasant Vihar, in collaboration with Special Olympics Bharat, held a unified sports event where students with and without intellectual challenges played together. This event was a unique opportunity for people to come together and enjoy sports while promoting inclusivity and breaking down barriers. The event was attended by employees of Macquarie, and commenced with a short presentation by Raman ma’am (Director Marketing and Communications at SOB) along with SOB youth leaders. followed by campaign president, Tishya Chandok, introducing Project Saksham to them. Football and basketball matches were enjoyed thoroughly by all participants. Students of Classes V to XI of our school were invited to play with the athletes. The event was organized by campaign heads, Tishya Chandok and Sanvi Awasthy along with a team of youth leaders from Classes VII and VIII. Vrinda Arora was the compere. At the end, a medal ceremony was held where all participants were awarded by Air Cmde Sharma, Executive Director, SO Bharat and TIS, VV Principal, Dr. Parul Tyagi.A photobooth was prepared by the art team and was much appreciated by the audience. Refreshments were served to all attendees. The event was a huge success and it was a heartwarming sight to see people working together, laughing, and having a great time. The atmosphere was filled with positivity, as everyone cheered each other on and celebrated each other’s achievements. It was a powerful reminder of the importance of inclusivity and reminded us that we can all come together to make a difference in each other’s lives.

To celebrate and spread awareness about our rich cultural heritage, one of the world’s oldest civilizations, is one of the guidelines of the NEP. However, TIS,VV has always held this to be one of the guiding principles of the school. One of the many initiatives taken by TIS in this regard is the formation of SOCH or the Society of Caretakers of Heritage (S.O.C.H) SOCH has been especially active in disseminating awareness about various historical monuments and took the students of Classes V and VI on a heritage walk to Rajon Ki Baoli in Mehrauli on 02 and 07 February 2023. The importance, stories, facts and legends associated with the Lodhi period baoli (stepwell) shared by the well-trained student members of the club from Classes IX and XI, kept the enthusiastic participants engrossed. The information and ideas shared during the fun-filled visit was reinforced by the worksheet that the students were asked to complete afterwards.

IIT Delhi’s Queer Pride Festival, “Vibhinn” was organised from 20-22nd January 2023.As part of their All India Queer Collective Conference – Spaces in the Making, various queer collectives from all over India were invited to share their journeys. Two of our students – Sonakshi Sharma and Arnav Tanwar (both of Class IX) participated in the panel discussion as representatives of our school’s Breaking Barriers Campaign.  A discourse on the struggles and the achievements of these collectives of various institutions was conducted. Breaking Barriers was the only school level campaign present among the queer collectives of universities as well as various NGOs and Trusts.

Flawless Flaws is a student-led campaign of Tagore International School, Vasant Vihar which works for the welfare of acid attack survivors. This group, in collaboration with Team Awaam, the theatre team of our school, performed a play to raise awareness about acid attack survivors at District Centre, Janakpuri on 30 December 2022. The eight students who performed were Saira Bhateja, Gunamay Rakhyani, Saiansh Kwatra, Saivansh Kwatra, Vrinda Arora, Tishya Chandok, Prabhtej Singh and Harnoor Kaur. A crowd gathered at the sound of dhol being played by Shriyans. Those who started watching the performance, stayed till the very end which showed how riveting the performance was. One could see how deeply the audience was affected. At the end, the whole team along with Ms Uma Chopra received a huge round of applause and a number of viewers filled out the skin donation forms which will subsequently be deposited with NOTTO.

The power of education can bring about great social change. An interactive and impactful Gender Sensitization Workshop was conducted by Breaking Barriers for DPS Rohini on 19 October 2022 for Classes X and XI , with almost 400 students attending this session in twobatches.The entire team worked together with much enthusiasm to deliver a very informative presentation. The campaign team members discussed various concepts related to the LGBT+community and human rights. The audience was keenly engaged and asked many questions and made note of key points. They expressed interest in having more sessions like these and so that they may initiate Breaking Barriers campaigns in their own campus.