"There should be no room for hopelessness; life is full of opportunities and we should maximise them," exclaimed Areeba, a matriculation student from the SOS Village School, Malir Halt and a participant in the Orange Day celebrated by GlaxoSmithKline Pakistan.
The event took place at the Pakistan American Culture Center, Karachi. The theme for this year's event was "Pakistan's Tomorrow". The day-long event had two major parts: an interactive career counselling session and a painting activity. Experts from all walks of life were invited to the speaker session to motivate the children and share their experiences. The speakers included famous cooking expert and TV host Mrs Zubaida Tariq, senior journalist Lubna Naqvi, photographer Wahaj Alley and Commodore Azir Mumtaz along with other notable professional speakers representing various professions including a teacher, financier, doctor, marketer, graphic designer, pharmacist, human resource professional, IT personnel and sales representatives.
The speakers motivated the participants to think positive and keep striving for their goals with dedication. All the speakers were from diverse backgrounds and shared several career options and their personal experiences with the students and motivated them to choose a profession that is most aligned with their personalities and interests. Rameez, the lead vocalist from the band Fuzon captivated his young audience as he sang a few lines from his famous hits.
The participants at Orange Day included approximately two hundred students from the Teach for Pakistan School network and SOS Children's Village. During the painting activity the students were divided into teams. The participating students were treated to a scrumptious lunch and school items at the end of the activity.
Farrukh Zaman, a fellow at the Teach for Pakistan Programme was happy to see his students get a chance to interact with notable speakers from different professions. He commented that initiatives like the "Orange Day" are more effective than simple classroom lectures, as he commented that "children are more visual learners and learn better by watching people". Orange Day, introduced globally in January 2009, enables GSK employees to make a significant difference by engaging with their local community. The initiative allows employees to take one full paid-day to volunteer for a chosen community project, organisation or cause which they support. Not only do the employees benefit from the team building experience but also the organisation gets an opportunity to play its due role in community building.-PR
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.