Design for Giving Contest

A school in India has made a contest called the "Design for giving contest." They are trying to make India better and have been asking questions about how would they can help change India, the city they live in.

The Hillwood Herald is also asking these questions here -- in San Francisco and the United States. What bothers us and what can we do?

What bothers you? Put your suggestions in the box on the front counter.

Today, The Herald staff interviewed Zara, who is 18 and works on the contest. We used Skype to video chat with her. We also used iChat (AIM) to write her. We had some technical difficulties, but she was patient and it finally worked. We have also written to her using email. You can read her note to us at the end of this article.

Over the next few days, we will post some video and audio from our interview with Zara.

Zara was very nice to speak to us for so long. It was also very late for her at night because of the time difference.

Below are links to some of the questions we asked:

• Jacob
• Anya and Rubina
• Lance
• Julian F.
• Brigette

Below is one video from the "Design for giving contest":



The following is a note from Zara A., our contact in India for the Design for Giving Contest.

My name is Zara A., I just turned 18 and i am totally loving it! I am 100% indian though i have almost no command over any indian languages, i prefer to think of myself as linguistically challenged. I joined the "Design for Giving Contest" Team because my mom and Mrs Kiran Sethi, Principal of Riverside school, were college roommates and know each other well. I actually moved from Chennai, a city in the south of India, to Ahmedabad, which is in the west, to work on the competition. I just finished highschool and am currently doing a gap year to primarily introspect because I, like most teenagers, am not entirely sure what i want to do with my future.


The original team that worked on the contest was aged about 18 to 21 (me being the youngest technically) and we all served different purposes. I was in charge of letter writing, press releases, website content etc. so they nicknamed me 'Words'. It was an amazing experience to see how people who had just met each other formed a team that worked very well with one another and managed to actually produce something as large as the Design for Giving Contest. All together on of the most memorable things ii have ever done and i am so glad that you guys want to be apart of it =D


Looking forward to speaking to the kids! if you need any more answers please feel free to email me! oh and warn them that i do have an indian accent so they might have to speak slowly for me to understand and vice versa.

Words

Lance wrote part of this story and then other Herald writers contributed.

Photo credits: Images of Ahmedabad are from Wikipedia; the photo so Zara is from Zara.