6200 students from 22 different schools of North Delhi, India participated in first Value Education Olympiad organized by ISKCON Punjabi Bagh.

Dr Suruchi Mittar, who has over 20 year experience in the field of education with various National Universities and a great concern for holistic education of the students led the organization of this Olympiad.

The purpose of this olympiad was to inspire students towards integrating and nurturing values like truthfulness, honesty, cleanliness, devotion, compassion etc in their lives.

“I found there was lot of excitement about this program”, said Ms Anita Sharma- Principal, SD Public School.  There were two levels of exams according to the age group and each level had a laptop, firefox cycle and a kindle as top three prizes. Besides, the toppers of each class received a pen drive with inspirational content.

“I believe that the challenges faced by students in regard to feeling unmotivated,  addictions, frustration, peer pressure, etc can be tackled by value education program.”  Shared Mr Subhash C. Aggarwal MD-SMC Group who happily sponsored the prizes of students.

Each registered student received a Family Empowerment Kit which had one Bhagavad Gita along with study guide and question bank. The curriculum was designed by expert educators based upon the needs of the students. It revolved around developing concentration, self control, regulation, healthy habits, dealing with stress, real happiness, virtuous qualities, different kinds of speech patterns, etc.

Srila A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada- Founder Acharya of ISKCON documented the first purpose of ISKCON as to check the imbalances of values through systematic education for achieving real unity and peace in the world.  This Olympiad was the expression of this core purpose of ISKCON.

There was a team of 20 volunteers from various professions whose hearts resonated with the purpose of this Olympiad and who chose to work for more than 6 months making time from their schedules to bring this Olympiad into a reality.

Srikarta Das (An Engineer from Delhi Technical University) and currently a monk at ISKCON Punjabi Bagh lead the entire team and operations with Dr Suruchi Mittar.

“Initially we had the target of registering only 500 students for the program. But when we actually went to schools and shared our purpose and the details of Olympiad, we were overwhelmed by the response and eventually we registered 6200 students” – Srikarta Das.

“We used to seek appointment with the principals or management of school and would request them to be the part of this Olympiad. We were invited to make announcement in school assembly and that was one of the exciting part for me. I wished we had a program like this when we were at school” shared Aditya Malhotra, one of the volunteers.

The entire event was concluded on the Gita Jayanti Day in the presence of Sacinandan Swami and Gopal Krishna Goswami when the overall toppers were awarded their prizes in presence of more than five hundred devotees. The toppers came with their proud families and many touched the hearts of audience while sharing their experience of the Olympiad.

“Its an excellent initiative by ISKCON in regard to imbibing values in the future citizens of the Nation”  shared Dr D.K Pandey (Principal – N.C Jindal School). Next year, the team is enthusiastic to organize this value education Olympiad for 15,000 students.