By OUR STAFF REPORTER
DEHRADUN, 19 Dec: UPES added yet another initiative under the umbrella of its Social Responsibilities. The first edition of ‘Raftaar’ – an Inter School Sports & Cultural Competition for the students of eight ‘Rajkiya Prathmik Vidyalayas’, which are assisted by the University, was launched on 18 December in its Kandoli Campus. Apart from providing need based infrastructural support to these state government run schools, student and faculty volunteers of UPES visit these schools on a regular basis to teach mathematics and English.
Inaugurating “Raftaar-2018”, Sahaspur MLA Sahdev Pundir expressed his gratitude to UPES for its voluntary efforts. He appreciated the quality of every initiative launched by the University.
Arun Dhand, Senior Director at UPES, said that nearly two hundred school students ranging from class 1 to 5 from the government primary schools at Paundha, Upper Kandoli, Bishanpur, Bidholi, Doonga, Masras-Patti, Bakarna and Kharakhet participated in multiple sports and cultural competitions. The sports events included sack race, rope skipping race, Spoon Lemon race, Ball under the Chin race, three-legged race and Tug of war while the cultural events included traditional group dances and group singing based on patriotic themes.
Running shields for the “Best School – Sports” and “Best School – Cultural” also got instituted on this occasion. Niharika Singh, Assistant Professor, UPES, conceived and executed all the sports events with the help of her colleagues and volunteers, while Dr Pooja Gupta, Assistant Professor, UPES, and her colleagues conceived and executed the cultural events.
Special races were also conducted for the accompanying teaching faculty of these schools and due weightage of these was also given while awarding the running shield. The participating principals in the Spoon & Lemon race included Monika Rani, Sapna, Kusumlata Kukreti, Ruchi Painuli, Surekha Devi, Lajshri Devi and Anjana Devi. The participating teachers in the Ball under the Chin included Neera Goyal, Vineeta Bhatt, Anmol Singh, Reena Sethi, Rekha Devi, Archana Nautiyal and Laxmi Devi. The running Sports Shield was won by RPV – Paundha, while the running Cultural Shield was claimed by RPV – Masras-Patti.
Dr Deependra Jha, Vice Chancellor, said that being amongst the primary school children and watching them perform gave him great pleasure.
Special mention was made of Manish Dubey, Assistant Director; Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive (SG), and Shivani, Office Executive, for driving the entire programme. The members of UPES – CSR team who actively contribute included Dr Shikha Dimri, Dr Ashish Verma, Dr Alka Dwivedi, Dr Bhawna Lamba, Dr Sapna Jain, Dr Vinay Awasthi, along with the administration team of Manish Yagnik and Manpreet Singh.