Dhai Akshar Educational Trust

Today in honour of World Ocean Day, we at Dhai Akshar dedicated to our commitment to our planet took part in our Sunday ritual to clean up Versova beach with Afroz Shah!🏖️

Beach clean-ups are important as they help protect marine life and the ecosystem, clear up pollution and make beaches safe for humans to enjoy! Dedicating a small part of the day to helping the environment, is a step towards a greener and more sustainable earth for future generations!☀️

We are so incredibly proud of our children who every Sunday enthusiastically participate and understand the need for such an activity!🥹❤️

On Tuesday, our day at Dhai Akshar began with a special visit from Mr Afroz Shah! He is a prominent figure known for his environmental advocacy and beach-cleaning initiatives, that our children often participate in!🌱🌏

He shared insights on preserving the planet and adopting sustainable practices, emphasizing the importance of taking simple but effective steps to reduce the use of plastic in our daily lives.♻️

His inspiring story motivated us to strive for hard work and for a greener planet we call home. ✨

Later in the day, our esteemed alumna, Vaishnavi Didi, delved into the world of Esports through a captivating presentation she curated for us. She provided an engaging session, discussing the different facets of Esports, and its career prospects, and introducing notable personalities from the field.🎮

It was a proud moment for us as educators to witness our former student lead a session in the Summer Camp. We eagerly anticipate more enriching sessions like these in the days ahead.🤩

Since April 13th, Dhai Akshar has been conducting a month-long theatre workshop led by Yogesh Arora from the Himalayiya Institute. ✨

The workshop delved into various facets of the theatrical realm, including theatre games, improvisations, voice exercises, body movements, Rasa theory, and scene work. During this period, the children, under Sir’s guidance, collaborated on a play titled ‘Chunavi Jungle ya Junglee chunav’ centred around the upcoming elections. They showcased their performance to our guests on May 14th, marking the conclusion of the workshop.😁

Every child had a unique role, adding a special touch to the play and making it a delightful experience for all. Our singing group did an exceptional job, enhancing the overall performance.🥹

At the end of the session, Yogesh Sir awarded certificates to each child as a token of participation in the workshop. We express our gratitude to Sir for his mentorship throughout the month and eagerly anticipate more such enriching sessions.✨

Lastly, we kindly urge everyone to exercise their right to vote in the upcoming elections.🇮🇳

This month at Dhai Akshar our goal was to work on enhancing our language skills before school reopens!✨

During our summer break Miss Yangjeyla, Miss Priti, Miss Namrata, Miss Ashwini, Miss Aditi, Miss Kajal, Aunty Shaila, and Miss Ekta conducted sessions for our children in English, Hindi, and Marathi!🥹❤️

We are so lucky to have such an amazing team of teachers, and we can’t thank them enough for their dedication towards our children’s education!📚

We are excited for more enjoyable learning sessions once the school reopens.😄

On Friday, Dhai Akshar’s younger batch had the exciting opportunity to watch a play, Wosquito - Mosquito’ directed by Saurabh Nayyar at the Prithvi Theatre!🎭

This was the perfect play for our younger children as through the creative perspectives of humans and mosquitoes, it delved into themes of friendships, and parent-child relationships!♥️

We all had a wonderful time watching it, and this was the perfect summer activity!✨🎭

Last week at Dhai Akshar we had the opportunity to have Mr. Abhijit Bhandari at the center for a career guidance session! It was a valuable opportunity for our older children who recently took their SSC exams and our 11th and 12th graders.❤️

The session focused on career choices, the significance of internships, and gaining practical work experience as our students pursue their education!✨

Our children found the session enlightening and beneficial for future planning and decision-making.😄

We are enthusiastic about hosting more sessions with experts like Mr Abhijit Bhandari to provide our students with valuable insights and guidance for their career paths!✨

On Earth Day, at Dhai Akshar, our younger and older batches engaged in creative activities to express their genuine love for our earth and the sustainable green future they see for it!

The younger participants expressed their love through a symbolic activity where they used impressions of their hands on a chart paper cut out and wrote affirmations for a brighter future on it.

The older ones expressed their vision for a better future by crafting handmade presentations and dioramas!

It was a delightful experience, and we all should commit to a greener and cleaner Earth not just today, but every day.

This past Sunday, 15 of our children took part in the 9th Taekwondo Maitree Chashak 2024 event, competing in weight categories from 28kg to 64kg. We are thrilled to announce that Team Dhai Akshar secured 3 Gold, 7 Silver, and 5 Bronze medals in this competition.🥇🥉🥈

Our team also received a large trophy for achieving the highest number of medals at the event. 🏆

We express our gratitude to Rohidas sir for his exceptional training that enabled us to perform so well. ❤️

This victory has filled us with joy and enthusiasm, motivating us to participate in more upcoming competitions✨

Yesterday at Dhai Akshar, children from class 9th, 10th, and those soon graduating to 11th standard got the chance to attend a session by Ushmi Shah on ‘Introduction to the field of Architecture’!🏛️

With the help of well researched PowerPoint presentation, taught us about further education in the field of architecture, how to pursue it, and the career opportunities it offers.✨

In this session, Ushmi Didi generously shared blueprints from her ongoing project! It was truly exciting to get an insight into what it looks like to be an Architect. She also promised a field trip to demonstrate the practical application of architectural studies in real projects!🥹

We are grateful for this insightful session as it helps our children broaden their perspective on what their future careers can look like and the abundance of opportunities that await them! ❤️

We hope that this session helped inspire our little future architects and we thank Ushmi Didi for kindly taking the time to organize such an enriching session for our children.✨

On Saturday we had an engaging G.K session with Vidhi didi, and together we delved into the fascinating world of creatures that call the Amazon forest their home. From the Amazon River Dolphin to the Poison Dart Frog, we covered a wide range of species in detail.🐆🐬

In our next class with Vidhi didi our children will explore the mysteries of the Solar System! Her engaging teaching style and well-researched PowerPoints not only makes learning fun but help understand the concepts and encourages participation among our children!🤩

Looking forward to expanding our knowledge and exploring the wonders of the universe in our next class with Vidhi didi.❤️

Another fantastic year of our Resource Room sessions at Dhai Akshar by Sonika Miss concluded with a bang, featuring amazing presentations from our four groups!✨

Here’s an overview of the work done:

1. Study Warriors:
Topic: Geometric shapes
Team members: Nikhil, Ayush, Devika, Sabina and Ranjit
Guided by: Kajal Miss

The group explained the concepts of:
* dimensions of objects
* 2 dimensional objects
* 3 dimensional objects
* 2 dimensional polygon shapes
* 3 dimensional geometric solids
The Group used impressive handmade models and activity aids to explain the details of the concept with an interactive Q&A session, and a fun activity that helped us identify 2D and 3D shapes and their properties.

2. Study Buddies:
Topic: Simple Machines
Team members: Abhishek, Sandhya, Ayush, Abhishek, Rani, Sabra and Rehman
Guided by: Aditi Miss

They taught us so much about Simple Machines - their types and uses, and with such clarity and confidence! They used everyday examples, quizzes, and animation games to help us understand the concept better!

3. Crazy Challengers
Topic: Language Safari
Team members: Roshni, Rehana, Punita, Deepak, Vedant, Shivani, Karan and Gauri
Guided by: Ekta Miss

They took us on a Language Safari and taught us about rhyming words, homonyms, idioms, and metaphors, it was heartwarming to see them present the topic with so much enthusiasm!

4. Ek Umeed
Team members: Piyush, Shahid, Rohan, Jyoti, Ismita and Pratima
Guided by: Ashwini Miss

They transported us back 5,000 years to the era of the Egyptian Civilization!

We were amazed by their wealth of knowledge! They used well-researched PPT, intricate handmade models, engaging quizzes, and, captivating eye makeup, which made the whole presentation immersive!

A big thank you to Sonika Miss for her guidance and for introducing our children to many interesting topics❤️

Happy World Theatre Day! 🎭

At Dhai Akshar, our classrooms were brimming with excitement as we had our theater class with Mr. Kaleem Zafar from ‘Own Space’. ✨

Zafar sir led various theater activities that focused on listening, speaking, and acting skills. 🎭

We had an enriching and enjoyable session, and are excited for more classes like this in the future!✨

One of the recent activities at Dhai Akshar for our younger batch of children focused on the important value of ‘Honesty’.

Our teachers, Ashwini Miss and Aditi Miss, decided to do something out of the box, and instead of just a normal class, they prepared and presented a skit to teach our children about honesty and discussed what it truly means! This activity, in an interactive way, taught our children what it means to be honest!

For this session, our children were guided to create an Honesty calendar where they had to write about any honest act they did that day.

Additionally, our children were also asked to fill in a chart where they could express their emotions while being honest and dishonest.

This value-driven activity is an important milestone for a young child, who, with the help of the adults in their life, learns about what’s right and wrong.

It was heartwarming to see them not only learn from it but also faithfully follow the calendar and express their feelings sincerely.

Today we are proud to announce that five of our six Dhai Akshar children in their recent Taekwondo exams earned their Green - 1 belts (of which four were our teachers!), and one earned a Green belt. 🥋

The Green belt symbolizes the growth of a plant, which is a great reflection of the persistent hard work and determination, it took our children to develop their Taekwondo skills.💪

We are now eagerly anticipating our upcoming Championships!🎖️

During our recent general knowledge session at Dhai Akshar with Ambili Teacher, we delved into the Mesopotamian civilization.✨

We not only explored its history but also watched an in-depth documentary to enhance our understanding.😮

Ambili Teacher organised an activity where our children were divided into their house groups and were tasked with creating their own language! 📝

The groups showcased their creations, where they created four distinct languages from scratch!
Andhara - by Earth 🌏
Hinendra - by Air🌬️
Code Language - by Fire🔥
Dottam - by Water🌊

Each group not only worked diligently but also gave a presentation of their work!👨‍🎓

Dottam combined Urdu, dots, and lines, while Code Language featured lines. Hinendra was composed of rectangles with vertical writing and unique elements, all rooted in A, B, C. Andhara relied on sounds, with each symbol representing a distinct sound. 🤩

This activity was unique and exciting! We were so proud that our children did such a fantastic job!🌸

We propose further exploration of these languages to potentially incorporate them into our centre officially.❤️

Our Saturday General Knowledge sessions are led by Vidhi Thakore, a standard 11 IBDP student from Oberoi International School, JVLR.❤️

In these sessions, Vidhi expertly delved into topics affecting our environment like Global Warming, pollution, temperatures, forest fires, deforestation, burning plastic, and snow melting, and discussing solutions that we on an individual level and governments across the world can take to avert a global crisis. 🌏

She also discussed how devastating Tsunamis can be, what causes it, and ways to address them. The sessions also shed light on the Ring of Fire and the Fukushima Nuclear Plant.

In our ongoing sessions, we are exploring the Amazon forests. These sessions also include engaging and interactive presentations.😄

Thank you so much, Vidhi, for your well-researched and informative sessions at the center. We look forward to our future sessions with you!✨

 Today at Dhai Akshar, we enjoyed a captivating art session led by Urva Sharma. She is a visual storyteller, and in this session, she shared her insights into how different mediums, like leaf printing, doodling, Warli paintings, and thumb art, can be used to tell a story.🎨

This session helped our children not only discover but also practice various art forms, resulting in the creation of beautiful artwork. It was exciting to learn that there are so many different ways to express our ideas through creativity!🧑‍🎨

Thank you, Miss Urva, for giving our children this enriching experience. We look forward to more sessions with you!❤️

Yesterday, keeping our promise to save and care for nature, both our younger and older batches of children and teachers took part in another beach clean-up organized by Afroz Shah! This time was special as we had the honor of welcoming The Norwegian parliamentary delegations for this activity!

The event took place from 9 am to 10 am, where everyone participated wholeheartedly in this special clean-up activity.

The Norwegian delegates and our children worked together with the goal, that no matter where we are from, we all have the same mission- a cleaner and healthier planet for future generations!

The collaboration between the groups highlighted the significance of community involvement in environmental initiatives, fostering a sense of responsibility towards the planet we all call home.

We thank Afroz Shah from the bottom of our hearts for this beautiful initiative and for creating an opportunity to participate in such events!

Chapter 3:
The power of self work rings through every cell of our body plunging into our own depths reveals new worlds within and without.

We all carry inside us many many selves a rich multiverese unknown to me to overcome any ‘stuck’ Ness with others, I must challenge the ‘stuck’ Ness within before I learn to communicate with others. I must learn to communicate with myself.
Thoughts are the language of mind, feelings, the language of body.
Living and loving we must constantly unlearn and relearn.

Everything begins and multiplies with gratitude.
From my world to universe. I’m contained in the entire universe and the entire universe is contained within me.❤️

Today on the occasion of Social Justice Day, at Dhai Akshar we celebrate Equality and Awareness of Basic Rights with Sheena Chohan. She is an award-winning actress and South Asia Ambassador- United for Human Rights, who is dedicated to helping society achieve justice and peace by spreading awareness of basic rights and equality.👬👭

She, with the help of small one-minute videos, explained the fundamental rights every human is entitled to🌸:
1) We are all born free and equal
2) Don’t Discriminate
3) The Right to life
4) No Slavery
5) We are always innocent until proven guilty
6) The Right to Privacy
7) Freedom of Thought
😎 Freedom of Expression
9) The Right to Play
10) A Fair Free World

Miss Sheena did an incredible job of explaining these concepts to our children, who were then divided into 4 groups and confident enough to perform skit on any one of the rights that they understood and resonated with the most!⭐️

We were incredibly impressed by their clear understanding and the creativity applied to perform a script on the same. Thank you Miss Sheena for taking the time to host this insightful session!🌸

Session 2: The world is ours to change:
To recognise the fact that there are others besides us out there who also experience loneliness and isolation, experiencing attachments and then having to let go.❤️

It is important to embrace rage and forgive ourselves before we can start to transform. 💫

Also, while admiring someone, we are able to identify their follies, becoming aware of our own grandeur, thus bringing ourselves closer to stepping into their shoes. When the distance between who I admire and what I am is reduced, everything becomes possible.🌸

In our usual Iyengar Yoga session today at Dhai Akshar, we had a wonderful time learning and practicing various poses taught by our cherished Rakhi ( ) teacher!❤️

She is one of our longest-standing volunteers, conducting weekly Iyengar Yoga classes at our centre for the past nine years. 🤩

We are truly grateful for her dedication to teaching Iyengar Yoga to the children.🧘‍♀️

In our usual Iyengar Yoga session today at Dhai Akshar, we had a wonderful time learning and practicing various poses taught by our cherished Rakhi teacher!❤️

She is one of our longest-standing volunteers, conducting weekly Iyengar Yoga classes at our centre for the past nine years. 🤩

We are truly grateful for her dedication to teaching Iyengar Yoga to the children.🧘‍♀️

In our recent general knowledge classes at Dhai Akshar, we explored the ancient past, focusing on the advanced civilization of the Indus Valley. During these sessions, we delved into Mohenjodaro, learning about its street layouts, sophisticated sewage systems, undeciphered scripts, and the enigmatic Priest-King.🤴

Our teacher, Ambili, even brought in a replica of the renowned ‘Dancing Girl’ for us to admire. Additionally, we studied Dholavira and its innovative reservoir system. 🏰

To test our knowledge, we engaged in interactive activities such as role-playing as traders to not just hone our bartering skills, but in the modern world get a glimpse of what living in the ancient times would be like. We also divided into groups to collaboratively design and construct a town from the ground up, creating 3D models based on our ideas.💫

We concluded our classes by watching informative documentaries on these ancient civilizations! We love how immersive our history classes are and we eagerly look forward to our next session with Ambili Miss!❤️

Welcome to the world of dreams where every imagination is possible🌸:

Session 1:
The first session was an activity where we experienced the world of sleep and dreams.

We imagined that we had all landed in a jungle where life was running through trees, rivers, rocks and animals, similar to the life in the bustling city of Mumbai.

Later, we spoke about our favourite memories of 2023 seen through the eyes of the sculpture we built in class. Also any one regret from 2023 that we would want to leave behind.💫

This week our younger batch of children created beautiful bookmarks from scratch for their ‘bhaiya-didis’ from our older batch!🌸

Our older children were kind and were over the moon to receive such adorable handmade bookmarks. We hope having new and shiny bookmarks will inspire our children to read books, using their custom bookmarks with joy.🔖

We appreciate the teachers for organizing activities that instil important values like ‘sharing’ at such a young age!🥹❤️

Last year, Besant Montessori School ( ) extended an invitation to host Dhai Akshar’s annual sports day at the Mhatre ground. Two of our children, Divya Singh and Prachi Yadav, were granted the opportunity for special athlete training from Firoz Ustad, a renowned coach from Track Blazers Academy ( )🏅

Their training began from December 2023, and the girls have been attending three sessions per week with academy champions.💫

We are extremely proud of both girls! They have been working diligently to excel in both their training and studies. Divya’s hard work recently paid off, as she performed exceptionally well in an event hosted by the Mumbai Suburban District Athlete Association.❤️

We would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to Aunty Kavita, Firoz Ustad, and for their unwavering support and belief in our children.🥹

The founder of Dhai Akshar NGO, Nyla Miss, wears many hats, including one where she is our English teacher! yesterday, we had an interesting session where we learned about ‘Tenses’!🕐

Nyla teacher’s explanation of tenses was detailed but at the same time easy for everyone to understand. She gave us multiple examples that were relatable, making it easy for our children to understand!🌸

As the class progressed and everyone’s understanding of ‘Tenses’ improved, it became interactive, and everyone participated with enthusiasm. This created a positive learning environment, and we all felt comfortable asking questions and sharing our thoughts.💫

By the end of the class, we were all eager to answer and solve the questions given.

We are now more confident in our understanding of tenses. We look forward to more classes with Nyla Miss in the future!❤️