‘Kindness in a bottle’ project wins award
Dubai Cares honours schools and students for coming up with innovative fund-raising campaigns this year
Teams of GEMS Wellington Primary School and Kindergarten Starters in Dubai were honoured for their winning charity campaigns yesterday.
Students and teachers attended the ‘Dubai Cares Distinguished Philanthropic Award in Schools’ ceremony to celebrate their charitable projects during the Year of Zayed.
The philanthropic competition consisted of two categories. The Philanthropic School Award honours the school that raises the most funds, while The Young Philanthropists Award honours the five students who devised the most creative and original fundraising concept.
GEMS Wellington Primary School bagged the Young Philanthropists Award for their creative project titled ‘Kindness in a bottle.’
Delhi Private School and Formarke School collected the second and third place awards.
In the Philanthropic School Award category, the first place went to the Kindergarten Starters, with GEMS Modern Academy and Dubai National School coming in second and third.
Gemma Game, grade one class teacher at GEMS Wellington Primary School, said: “The concept behind the project is that we took the idea of sending a message in an old school way by putting it inside a bottle, and with that we had a donation box to raise funds.”
Students from grades 3 to 6 wrote a message each to a child in need in another part of the world. The messages included inspirational quotes, poetry, kind words, and even pictures.
“We also held a symbolic school-wide event in March where each class went down to the school’s pool to throw their messages into the water. The bottles were later collected and recycled, and the messages were kept with hopes of sending them along with the donations,” Game said.
Another teacher at the school, Nilam Khaira, said the idea came about through an after-school club called ‘The young philanthropist’ where a team of 12 children brainstormed on the creative ways of fundraising. “We are currently working with Dubai Cares to send some of the messages across to children in need whom we will be donating [the raised funds] to,” she said.
Grade 6 student Anushka Rao said she was happy the team’s hard work paid off. “We sent the notes to children all around the world, letting them know we want you to get better, we feel bad for you and we are sending money for you,” she said.
Her team member, Robeen Ishwehdi, a grade 5 student, said it was great fun writing the messages to children.
“The 2018 edition of the award, which commemorates the Year of Zayed, has demonstrated that the values and lessons of empathy, compassion and generosity shared by Shaikh Zayed is shining from within this next generation,” said Tareq Al Gurg, chief executive officer of Dubai Cares.