War vs Peace - Smriti Tiwari

Let me ask you a question—if you had a choice, would you choose war or peace? It sounds like an easy choice, right? We all want peace. But if we look at history, the world has seen more wars than lasting peace. So why does war still exist? And why is peace so difficult to achieve?

The Reality of War

War is often fought in the name of power, land, and ideologies. But what does it really bring?

• Lives lost – Families are shattered, innocent people suffer, and soldiers never return home.

• Destruction of nations – Cities turn to rubble, economies collapse, and generations are left struggling.

• Hatred and division – Even after wars end, wounds remain—both physical and emotional.

Think about the World Wars, the countless battles in history, and even conflicts happening today. Have they ever truly solved problems? Or have they only created more suffering?

The Strength of Peace

Some people believe peace is a sign of weakness. But true strength lies in choosing peace over war.

• Nations grow when they invest in education, healthcare, and innovation instead of weapons.

• People thrive when they focus on cooperation instead of conflict.

• The world moves forward when we unite to fight real issues like poverty, climate change, and disease.

Great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr. proved that peaceful resistance can bring real change. They didn’t pick up weapons, yet they changed the world.

What Can We Do?

Now, you might wonder—I’m just a student. What can I do? But peace starts with small actions.

• Choosing understanding over anger in our daily lives.

• Spreading kindness instead of conflict in our communities.

• Believing that even one person can make a difference.

Conclusion

So, war or peace—which one should define our future? The answer is clear. War destroys, but peace builds. War divides, but peace unites.

It’s up to us to choose a world of progress, unity, and harmony. Because only through peace can we create a future worth living for.

Smriti Tiwari
Sunbeam Bhagwanpur

Making Others Happy - Bharti Rao

Happiness is the feeling of joy. This feeling increases when we show kindness and make others happy. When we achieve something, we become so glad because we have achieved our effort. We should always love others and spread happiness. If we love others, they will also love us.

Making others happy give us happiness.  These days there are so many different things that can make a person happy. People should focus on others happiness for a change instead of focusing on their own happiness. This will make the world a happier place. Birthday is the time to celebrate with friends and family. Also, it is the best time to serve the community. 

Birthdays are unique to children, but not everyone can celebrate by participating in parties or gifts. My cousin wished to celebrate her birthday with the orphans. She visited the orphanage with her family, brought gifts and cut the cake with the children. The happiness seen on the children's faces really gave my sister immense pleasure in making her day.

Mother's job is selfless. She takes care of her family and loves them selflessly. She does everything to make them happy. Her happiness lies in her family. Community Service also gives us immense pleasure. Being a social volunteer is a blessed opportunity in itself. 

I remember another incident of my student Laxman who decided to celebrate his birthday with the old age people. He visited the old age people and celebrated his birthday with them and made his day memorable. I would like to end by quoting the words of Mother Teresa, "Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one come to you without leaving happier.

Bharti Rao 

The Fabindia School 

bro@fabindiaschools.in

Humility - Nikita Rajpurohit

Humility is the quality of being humble. It also means putting the needs of others before your own and thinking of others before yourself. This quality has to be a part of one’s character. It begins with accepting who we are and what makes us human. It has to start with the recognition that we are not always right, we can be wrong at some point in time, and we need to learn from others.

A humble person is an eye-catcher in this era of selflessness, where everybody screams for themselves and avoid others completely. A humble person is always loved, appreciated and respected by others. 

We often see that it is easy to be humble when we are at the low stage, but many of us lose this quality when we progress and achieve something in life. A person should not make others feel inferior and consider himself superior. Otherwise, we will start feeling avoided by the people around us. We can often notice the difference in the size of a friend circle of a humble person v/s a selfish or rude person. 

Being a teacher, we need to inculcate this value among our children, but this only happens when we are humble towards others; children always learn by doing and seeing the people around them. We can also share some examples of great leaders (Mother Teresa) who were admired and respected only because of this humbleness. 

Let me put an end by saying that 'Always be like the bamboo. The higher you grow, the deeper you bow.'

Nikita Rajpurohit

The Fabindia School

nra@fabindiaschools.in

Responsibility and Cooperation - Achievers JMMS

RESPONSIBILITY 

Responsibility is something that we are supposed to do. It is something related to trust. A person is responsible when he is honest and if he has the courage to do something. It is responsible for something you are expected to do.

Responsibility is promising someone about the task, duties or anything. It means to be confident and have the ability to make decisions. Responsibility is being prepared from mind about handling the situations. When we take responsibility, it allows us to prove ourselves. When someone has trust in us that he or she can do it, then only we can be responsible. 

For example: In school, a teacher's responsibility is to treat her or his students equally. A teacher is responsible for teaching the students in the best and simplest way so that each child can understand. 

Similarly, the students are responsible for completing the given work to them by the teacher on time.

COOPERATION 

Cooperation is something similar to collaboration. It means putting efforts together to gain the same motive. It is working together with others to achieve something. When we work together to achieve good results in everything or work, we need cooperation to complete that work.

It is the process of groups working together for the benefit. Cooperation is respecting everyone and building friendship.

For example, Children and teachers work together to take out the best from the students. In the same way in any function in the school teachers and students can say the whole staff of the school co-operate to gain the same motive.

Giving responsibility to someone makes them responsible, and they also gain the courage to do the work.

This is a story of one boy who used to be quiet in the class. He used to feel shy about talking to the teachers as well as his peers. He has the habit of doing all his work all alone. Seeing him like this, the teacher thought of distributing the class's little task to the students. She divided the work of the class to each and every student. The teacher asked all the students to do the survey of the school. For this, she made the group by dividing the class. She trusts that boy that if I give him some tasks, he would surely come up with good results. Keeping that child in the group help that child to gain confidence and made him responsible. And with the help of the team members, they come up with the best results. They cooperated with each other and did the survey of the school.

"Alone we can do little, but together we can do so much. "

Achievers JMMS 

John Martyn Memorial School

Salangaon, Dehradun 

- Sweta Thapli, Jyoti Joshi, Meena Kukreti and Nisha Pundir 

It's never too late - Kusum Dangi

Courtesy Source: croninsta.com

It is said that there is no age to dream, it takes just a little time to achieve them.

By the age of 15 -17 years, it seems that it is still small, focus on studies. It seems to be 21, think about the career of 30-32, it seems that dreams are being left behind and they are getting 45 years old. Now, there is no age to dream nor to fulfil them.  But the truth is that there is no age to fulfil dreams. Where one more of the example of Barack Obama who retires at the age of 55, while the other is Donald Trump is 70 years old at the age, as he started his term as the President of America, it is most important to have faith in yourself. If we believe in ourselves, then we can fulfil our dreams at any time, just be encouraged yourself that yes I can do it.

Kusum Dangi

The Fabindia School

kdi@fabindiaschools.in

Seek Discomfort - Urmila Rathore

Seek discomfort means a lot to humanity. Seek means to try to find and discomfort means to go out of comfort zone. Seek discomfort means to challenge yourself. It is to go beyond the "safety limits" and "comfort zone". 

To me, it means getting out of your comfort zone as often as possible so that you can be a stronger and more experienced version of yourself. For example, a person who travels a lot becomes more comfortable with different cultural customs, foods, and lifestyles.

Seek discomfort, in my opinion, is one of the ways to success - it reminds us to achieve our dreams and also gives an adventurous life. There is a creator group named 'Yes Theory' who follows this motto too.

Similarly, we can overcome our fears and become comfortable in discomfort in many ways like,

• Pushing our limits.
• Meeting with different people.
• Working hard for what we aspire.

Urmila Rathore

The Fabindia School

urd@fabindiaschools.in

Keep Trying with Determination - Monika Vaishnav

newtondailynews.com

We all want to do something great in life, we have different dreams to achieve but we see that only a few of us could achieve, why?

Some people always think they will start tomorrow, and tomorrow never comes, so if you want to start something good for you, start now. Some people start things with great energy but give up soon. So it requires constant self-motivation and hope. 

Having dreams or wishes is easy, it doesn't require handwork or efforts. But it requires a lot of efforts and determination to achieve our goal. Determination plays an important role on the way to our success because it helps us to stay motivated every day and be hopeful until we reach our destiny.

There will be obstacles or challenges but if we have strong will power which gives us inner strength, we can achieve what we want and make it happen. We don't get everything easily in life and it is not necessary that we will get success in the first attempt, there can be rejections or failures but we need to try again and again if we want to achieve something no matter how difficult the situations are. 

Monika Vaishnav 

The Fabindia School

mvv@fabindiaschools.in

What is important for Success? - Bharti Rao

Everybody wants to achieve their goal and success in life. Nobody dislikes it. But to achieve success is not so easy. Always remember that failure only helps us to achieve success. The first step to achieve success is to keep in mind that we should never be discouraged by failure. Learn from your failure to achieve greater success in life.

Destiny has a role to play in life, but it is beyond our control. Hard is in our reach and that we should never abandon it. Hard Work is the key to success. Without hard work success, no success is possible. If we work hard, if we perform our duty well, even God will have to reward us sooner or later. Lord Krishna has said in his preaching in the Bhagavad Gita that “Do thy duty unmindful of the reward.”

Today in this materialistic world money is important. But always remember that money and materialistic success cannot give you real happiness.  If we run and aim for materialistic success it leaves us tensed and in stress all the time. True success lies in our happiness. Money should always be secondary. We should have that much money which will help us to lead a comfortable life. Aim at the success which will give us happiness, contentment and attain it by hard work and from selfless deeds. Don’t try to attain success through wrong ways and at the cost of others.

If you want success to believe in yourself, work hard, keep on trying and learn from your flaws. I would like to quote the words of Bob Brown “Behind every successful man there’s a lot of unsuccessful years.” So stay focused, keep patience and go on.

Bharti Rao, The Fabindia School <bro@fabindiaschools.in>

Self Motivation - Nikita Rajpurohit

Motivation is a very strong tool that we can use to get further in life to achieve our dreams and goals.

Setting goals for ourselves is something that I consider to be very important, I believe in always pushing myself further and further in life, not only physically but mentally as well. We all have different things or tools we can use to motivate us towards our end goals. In order for us to stay motivated, we have to have a goal and be driven towards achieving that goal.

Self-motivation is the window of a room with a closed-door that keeps you reminding that there is always a way to achieve things you desire. Wanting to do something and motivating yourself to actually do it are two different things. The difference between those who never reach their goals, even after years and years, and those who achieve one goal after another is nothing but their self-motivation, it’s the positive inner force that pushes them to move further and help them achieve their goals.

When you think you want to give up on something, or you just don’t know how and where to start from, your self-motivation is the key that unlocks the door for you to explore and achieve. With self-motivation, learn and grow – regardless of the hurdles coming in your way. That’s why it’s such a fundamental tool for reaching your goals, achieving your dreams, and succeeding, in this journey called life.

Positive thinking is an important element to build strong self-confidence. It’s important to look at things positively, especially when things aren’t going as per plans and you really want to give up. If you keep thinking negative about things or you feel you won’t succeed, it may influence things around you in such a way that all your negative predictions will come true which will make you more and more upset.

This happens in the cases where you need to work hard to achieve your goals, or if you need to persuade others to support you in order to succeed. Your thoughts have a major influence on your success or failure, so make sure those thoughts are “on your side.”

Focusing on your goals is also an important part to keep yourself motivated. When you have many goals, always schedule your time and resources effectively. You can achieve the “focus” part of self-motivation by prioritizing and establishing a schedule that will help you succeed in accomplishing your work more effectively. It doesn’t make sense to work until you’re exhausted or give up one goal to achieve another or just simply doing half of every work and completing none. So always keep motivating and stay motivated

Nikita Rajpurohit

The Fabindia School

nra@fabindiaschools.in

Responsibility and Cooperation - Shivani Rao

Cooperation refers to the process of working together to the same end. It can be seen in

the action of people working together in order to achieve results or helping each other out to achieve a common end.

Importance of Cooperation in individual lives: 

— Allows people and group to work together to achieve a common goal or derive mutual benefits. 

— Allows participants to exchange valuable information that helps both sides to improve their knowledge bases.

— The task can be completed on time.

-Uses of resources in an efficient manner.

Educators should introduce cooperative learning within the classroom in order to improve the whole student learning experience. Students should develop and enhance this value in order to succeed in a future professional environment.

Cooperation should be taught from childhood. Students in early age can be moulded in any shape. This value in the child not only helps to gain respect in society but also helps to develop leadership qualities. 

Someone who possesses leadership qualities that means he has the ability to take responsibility. Cooperation builds leadership and leadership comes with a package of responsibility, togetherness, love, patience, unity, and many more.

Responsibility is the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone. Responsibility includes honesty, respect, fairness, accountability, and courage. 

Children easily get distracted from the right track. We must see that they should take responsibility for their thoughts, feelings, words and actions and should correct it timely. They should stop blaming and complaining and make themselves happy and live in the present moment.

Examples of Cooperation and Responsibility can be seen during this pandemic period where we all are united and cooperating with the government. Doctors, police officers, sweepers have taken the responsibility to remove Covid-19  from our country.

Shivani Rao

The Fabindia School

sro@fabindiaschools.in

Courage and Patience - Richa Solanki

How to teach the courage to students in their day-to-day school life can improve their learning, performance, at school. Teachers and Parents can make aware the students who lack confidence and encourage them. They can have good academic outcomes by matching that of confident students at the same level of ability.

Teachers and Parents can use it to boost and encourage students to set goals; to decide what they are aiming for and how to achieve goals. It is important to teach them that they walked along for a short time but lost courage or became impatient. Patience and courage are related to each other and good judges who are coming to show a radiant way of being in the world.

Patience is not waiting for something to pass because patience is not waiting for anything to pass; because courage is living with patience. Courage and patience are related together: courage is what you have to face with confidence and patience in the presence of doubt. Patience is not about waiting; it is giving us the time we need to think seriously and make the correct decision. Courage should not be confused withdrawing back, turning back or speeding on, going forward into an unknown future. Richa Solanki The Fabindia School

What are some of the signposts to success in the Award?

• Participation – The Award is open to all regardless of cultural differences
• Development – Young People grow in the Award, even if they don’t recognize it
• Sustainable – The Award does not call for huge resources
• Flexible – It allows for any number of permutations / combinations. Can use local conditions to perfection
• Focus on Success – every Record Book is a story of Success and Achievement
• Reach – The format demonstrated enormous reach to young people in every walk of life
• It is a Marathon not a Sprint! It teaches young people to persevere
• It gives young people two wonderful gifts – Joy and Choice!
• It enables young people to make a real difference in their community

Reward yourself!

When you live up to your resolutions, you reward yourself. This is the Award Programme.

When you resolve or set a goal and try to achieve it, you really find this self satisfaction. You are rewarded for reaching your very personal goals, and have fun in doing so. What makes the Programme so special ... keeps things really simple. You do what you want, with whom you like, and at your very own pace. There is no greater reward than to live up to your own expectations.

Next time you commit to your own self, ensure you take the challenge and be motivated enough to wear the badge of the Award for life. 

Cheers,

Sandeep
---Sandeep DuttNational DirectorThe Award Programme Foundation 
Member: The Duke of Edinburgh's Award International Association

Creating Committed Citizens

The International Award Programme has reached more than seven million young people in over 135 countries. Regardless of ability, gender, background or location, the Award enables young people to set off on a personal journey towards a better future. Find out how the Programme is creating committed citizens of the world.

Youthful Nation

Power of Sports for Development (S4D) 

The nation is always young and has many of us in transition. The young aspire for a better world the nations must evolve and keep up with the needs and aspirations of the youth. Youth development is really the crux of nation building, the country that takes care of the young people develops and goes on to become not only rich in wealth and culture but evolves as a real welfare state. There is thus the necessity of having a healthy and more fit young populace. The core of the youthful nation will only be strengthened by promoting physical recreation in the life of the young people.

Education many a times is touted and promoted as literacy; promotes the need to read and write for a better future, this is not enough. We need thinking and understanding and that is really the bottom line for a better future. There is the growing need for mentors to help the young, empower them to live in harmony with nature, encourage them to serve the community and more so be physically fit and better skilled than simply educated in the read and write way. We all have to work to equip for life the young, challenge them to achieve their true potential and keep the nation young, dynamic and on the growth path always.

India's rise in economic terms is closely linked to the youth power, and all investments in building youth capital will help the young equip for life. Yes, inclusive growth the mantra of governments is enshrined on building up the quality of life for the young people, and we all need to partner to help the young achieve their true potential. How do we do this? Let us invest in our youth and help them all live a healthy life. The best investment in youth will be in the form of pushing sports, not necessarily at the professional level, but for better health and wellbeing, we have endless research to show that poor health will not give us the desired academic results. India today needs to give same regard to sports as it does to any of the key economic activity that generates the millions for the states exchequer.

What does industry mean? Wikipedia refers industry as an activity that brings about the production of an economic good or service within an economy. An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area; the labor, capital and land resources; and the manufacturing, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area. An economy may also be described as a spatially limited and social network where goods and services are exchanged according to demand and supply between participants by barter or a medium of exchange with a credit or debit value accepted within the network. Sport very much fulfils this criterion, and for the youthful nation must thus be regarded as an industry and a major service that adds to the GDP of a nation. Any nation that uses sport as a development plank not only has a healthy lifestyle, is a youthful nation in itself. These nations today are major economic powers and believe in their young people.

Physical recreation with its emphasis on both individual sport and team games is designed to build the sinews as well as team spirit. Learning to function together with other to build a team is an invaluable art. Beyond just being an industrious activity, sport is the biggest catalyst in nation building, and is the best way for social inclusion and economic development. A nation must stay young to lead in the world, and the best way is to use sport as a key development initiative. Many developed nations have even used a term of military / services training as a compulsory activity for the youth, they thus work to build on achieving the goal of inculcating patriotic sentiment, but more is done to encourage physical fitness and the love for the outdoor. All this helps the young people to be equipped for life, and this again is the only way to build a better citizenry.

The International Award for Young People (IAYP), is a tool to ‘equip for life’ young people in India and a major components of the programme are targeted at using sport and outward bound activity as key enablers. The Award Programme is the most adaptable and successful youth empowerment program. We have no religious, political or strategic affiliations. We have an established capacity for identifying hard issues and challenges associated with youth. Schools, youth organisations, community groups, correctional services, employers and government departments nationwide use the Programme framework. Around the world, over 130 countries use this model for positive youth empowerment. We draw together and connect people, institutions and generations with the common purpose of youth development and inclusion. IAYP is the Programme of choice for over 9 million people in the world today.

The prescription for a youthful nation is only one, challenge young people everywhere. The vision of any sport for development initiative should be to equip for life all young Indians and to help achieve their full potential. We see the possibility of a nation where every school offers young Indian the opportunity to be rewarded for challenging themselves, rewarded for engaging with adult mentors, rewarded when finishing school, and rewarded for giving back to their communities. This really is the spirit for a youthful nation. We all need to ensure that we work to create best ecosystem to enable our youth, and there is no better way to do this than making sport for development a key agenda in all our initiatives.

Lead the Gold Holders

Your GOLD chance!

We would like to have a Gold Award holder, work as the Executive Secretary of the Gold Award Holder’s Society. Age 23 – 30 years, previous experience not really necessary, as we believe in ‘dream it, build it!’

Location will be the IAYP India Office in Delhi, and will report to the Communications Manager.

Connect and build a network of 1000 Gold Holders in India by 2013, and make the Society sustainable.

Events, Exchanges, International connections, work with leading businesses and be a leader of the pack.

Your ability to lead and manage a network of Volunteers and potential Gold Holders will help you shine as our young achiever.

Connect with nivedita@dofe.in today, as the offer closes before September sets in .

Sandeep
---

Sandeep Dutt
National Director, The International Award for Young People
Award Programme Foundation
86 Shahpur Jat, Khel Gaon Marg, New Delhi 110049, India
Phone: +91 11 2649 7154, Fax: +91 11 2649 7165, Website: iayp.in
Registered Charity No. TR/27951
www.iayp.in