Mangalore :The city of Mangalore took a big step on Saturday June 28th in the area of inclusivity and providing inspiration to specially-abled people. Mangalore Coastal Round Table 190 and Mangalore Ladies Circle 82 crowned a team of 5 high school students as “Genius 2014”. What was truly remarkable about this honor was that the five children had a mix of specially-abled (speech & hearing challenged, visually challenged), Kannaga medium and English medium students.
The quiz was conducted in two rounds (semi-finals and finals) with each having 5 types of question formats.With 10 teams in total and 5 children in a team, there were a total of 50 participants. These comprised 20 children from private schools, 10 children from government (public schools), 10 children from SDM Mangala Institute, Vamanjoor (speech and hearing challenged category) and 10 children from Roman and Catherine School for the Visually Challenged (visually challenged category).
The quiz saw a great deal of activity from the students who immediately managed to pick up the format and also overcome their hesitation of dealing with people who are abled differently than themselves. It was everyone’s observation that this format of a mixed team greatly improved their sensitivity and understanding of natural barriers.There was no better way than this quiz,to prove the point that specially-abled children can and will contribute equally to every facet of life provided the environment is inclusive, supportive and friendly.Mangalore Coastal Round Table 190 and Mangalore Ladies Circle 82 are strongly committed to this objective and this was one of the key reasons for the introduction of this concept. Also, there was no better time to achieve this than the commemoration of Helen Keller’s day (June 27th).
Special Rounds
The rounds of the quiz had been carefully formulated to maintain this inclusive environment and atmosphere of team work.
As an example, the answers to the rounds were mandated to be written down after discussion within the team, before they hit the buzzer. This ensured that even the hearing impaired children in the team would not be left out of the action.
The braille round and charades round turned out to be the most interesting.
Braille Round: In the round the question to the participants was ONLY given to them in braille script – the script used by the visually challenged to read and write. Once the visally challenged student had deciphered the questions, it was up to all the other team mates to jointly answer the question before hitting the buzzer. This led to a lot of cohesion between the teams and their understanding of the finer details of reading braille.
Charades Round: In this round ONLY the speech challenged student was shown a visual of a person or an object and this student had to enact it to the other students.
The Final Round, the Winners and Runners-Up:
There were six teams that qualified for the final round.The last two rounds saw great excitement and a nail biting finish with the teams led by Mount Carmel school and Ladyhill Victoria school alternately inching past each other. The charades round turned out to be the decider with team member Harshith wining many hearts for his near perfect performance of enacting of personalities like MS Dhoni and Sonia Gandhi. He led his team to win the quiz by 10 points scoring an overall 250 while the runners up scored 240.
In a closely contested contest the quiz was won by the team comprising
– Harshith (speech & hearing challenged category – SDM Mangala Institute)
– Sathwik Shetty (visually challenged category – Roman & Catherine School)
– A. Dhanish (public school category – BEM High School, Car Street)
– Bindiya H Shetty (private school category – Ladyhill Victoria Girls High School)
– Yukhta S Rao (private school category – Ladyhill Victoria Girls High School)
The runners up were
– Suraksha (speech & hearing challenged category – SDM Mangala Institute)
– Shashikala (visually challenged category – Roman & Catherine School)
– Katija Kubra (public school category – Govt high school, Car Street)
– Ashwin AV (private school category – Ladyhill Victoria Girls High School)
– Yukhta S Rao (private school category – Ladyhill Victoria Girls High School)
Prizes
The winning team was given prizes in the form of trophies, certificates and gifts worth Rs 10,000/-. The runners up won trophies, certificates and also gifts with Rs 5,000/-. All participants were provided certificates of appreciation for their participation.
Inauguration:
The event was inaugurated by Mr. UT Khader, Honorable minister for Health and Family welfare, Govt of Karnataka. It was also attended by Mr. Santosh Shetty and K Ibrahim, the head of Zilla Parishath.
Dr. Vishwas K Pai, senior resident, dept of ENT working with AJ Hospital who is also the president of the Mangalore Quizzing Foundation was the quiz master. With his unique style and assisted by his wife Mrs Vatika Pai and other volunteers from the quizzing foundation, they managed to keep the children and the audience engaged and enthralled through the quiz.
The participants from the visually impaired category were from the Roman and Catherine school for the visually challenged.The participants from the hearing and speech impaired category were from the SDM Mangalajyothi Institute, Vamanjoor whose administrative officer Mr. Ganesh Bhat was present.
Some Moving Moments
There were many moving moments that the audience witnessed today. The bonding that had developed between differently abled children in each team was something to be cherished. It was a moving site when the visually challenged students who would normally depend on solely on their designated teacher for moving around, suddenly became comfortable holding the hand of their team mates when being guided to the quiz stage, back and elsewhere too to have the refreshments or visit the washroom.
Another moving sight was how quickly the normally abled children began to learn the language and actions of the hearing impaired students and managed to converse with them at ease. The organizers even noticed them exchanging their contact information and emails before leaving which probably is a forge of new relationships across natural barriers.
