This year, we conducted the Safety Quest online on the 13th of November. The poster above was used for the invitation along with an FAQ. Thanks to our partners, Walnut Knowledge Solutions, and several well-wishers, the word spread across the country and also beyond. We had students in grades 6-8 from over 70+ cities from India and UAE. The major cities being Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Patna, Chandigarh, and AbuDhabi, Dubai, Doha.

We had a total of 1234 registrations of which 350 participants joined in for the event.
For those of you who wish to experience the quiz, check this out https://kahoot.it/challenge/003952769

As usual we strive to bring awareness to the students in a fun way. This time we leveraged the Kahoot platform more effectively, and it allowed us to create questions in different formats :
1) Multiple choice questions – where there may be 1 correct answer, or multiple correct answers
2) Type your answer – we made it a one-word answer, and allowed for typing mistakes
3) Arrange the options in order – where the 4 options could be moved around to create the sequence
Another good feature of Kahoot is that it logs the time to answer, and thus there is an automated method of ranking the correct answers based on “fastest finger first”.
The gamification also ensures that each participant sees the top performers on the charts, and their individual position vis-a-vis the leaders. This was also useful in engaging and enthusing the participants.

Students learnt about various aspects of safety : Road, Electrical, Fire, Cyber, Health, Environment
They learnt about techniques : Distress Signals, CPR, Creating a Floatation Device, Using a Fire Extinguisher
We included questions on innovative ideas from young children to inspire the participants, to let them know that they can make a difference.
We used videos to reinforce the learning.

At the end of the quiz, we asked the children to answer in one word “What is the 1 new thing that they learnt today?”. This is what the children responded with :

The worthy winners of the quiz were Ritwik Choudhary, Saaliha Bilal, Sanath Kothari, Gia Goel, Aditya Rajiv Ratnam
and Vidisha Swaika. Congratulations to all the winners!

Here is some feedback we received, which we thought was very heartening :
Aditya Rajiv Ratnam: regards to the Arundathi Foundation for doing such wonderful work. We are grateful for your enormous generosity and kindness to society despite your personal loss. I wish everyone in the Safety Quiz could properly interact with you and understand the story.
Saee Nimdeo: Thank you for the quiz
Yashaswini Vallurupalli: it was great
Parv Patodi: Amazing quiz
Diya Pawar: Amazing 😻
Tanvi Vallurupalli: It was fun
Rishabh Sehrawat: please conduct the next quiz as soon as possible
Anushka Shanker: wonderful quiz!
Pragyan Saluja: very nice I enjoyed and learned many things
Suveer Modi: It was an amazing quiz. I would love to play more quizzes like this!!
Ritwik Choudhary : Some questions were tough for me to answer, but was happy to learn so much new stuff
Saaliha Bilal : The content and format of the quiz were enjoyable. I promise to be an ambassador by spreading safety information with my friends.

Since many of the registered participants could not join us, we shared the link to the quiz https://kahoot.it/challenge/003952769
This has also been shared with the teachers who had helped us mobilize the students for the quiz. So far, 177 people played the quiz shared in this manner! We hope that anyone who comes across this blog post will do so as well.

A big shout out to Anagha Sridhar, Shrija Bhattacharya, N Shilpa of Walnut Knowledge Solutions. They played a big role in putting together the content for the quiz. And during the event, despite some technical glitches, they kept the show going, keeping the audience engaged all through!

We are grateful to Lakshmi Nair, and Underwriters Laboratories, who came forward to sponsor the prizes for the event. One of the core values of UL is that of safety science, and therefore we are especially pleased to have UL as a partner for SafetyQuest since 2017. A sincere Thank You!

Here are some pics from the online event.

9 Jan 2021 : We hosted the first Safety Quest of 2021 online for the young students of grades 3,4,5 of the Shiv Shikshan Sanstha’s Global School, Sion.

For many of them, it was the first time to attend such an event online, and some of them also faced operational challenges. Despite this, the children were enthusiastic and engaged all through the event.

Congratulations to the Top5 winners ! Aditya Kadam, Shreedatta Patil , Arush, Aishwarya Prakash Vhatkar and Aarya Helkar will receive their QShala vouchers. We are sure it will be a great learning experience for them.

The children wrote back to share what they retained :

• Wear a helmet on scooters, and in the car put on the seat belt even in the rear seats
• We are aware of safety – to protect self and others
• It was enjoyable for students to learn safety in this manner

Here is the testimonial from the school management(Mrs. Sunita Pant – Principal):

“It was a wonderful event and was very engaging. Most of the parents called me personally and appreciated the way the event was hosted and asked me to conduct such events in the future too. These kinds of activities help children in building their mind set and thinking way which will make them a better person in their life.”

Thank you Ma’am for giving us the opportunity and we hope the participants will be our Safety Ambassadors!

Here are a couple of screenshots of the participants.

It’s been over seven months since a tiny virus entered countries and brought them to a standstill. What started as a trickle of cases in our country has now become a torrent. The students stay locked up in their houses and teachers are working extra hard facing innumerable challenges in continuing their duty of imparting knowledge. Parents are stressed with their work, looking after their homes and helping their children study besides facing the anxiety of keeping the family healthy and protected.

We have wondered how we can keep spreading the message of safety to the children and the public at large. We have now started taking our marquee Safety Themed quiz contest to schools and involving not just the students but entire families in this effort.

Along with our knowledge partners Walnut Knowledge Solutions, we have held two very successful events this month.

The first one was held for the students of Aaryan Study Circle, Goa on Friday 18 Sep. for the students of Grades 8-9-10. A total of 161 students from various schools from Goa , joined in and had a fantastic time learning some new safety related stuff and revising important messages. A big thanks to Vyankatesh Prabhudessai for helping us organize this event. The top 5 winners of this quiz were

• Ashish Bhat
• Adeep Kuncalienker
• Lavanya Borkar
• Suhaan Sharieff
• Aastha L Amonkar

Some of the insights that we got were that about half the students were aware of the 20-20-20 rule. In these times of online classes, it would be appropriate to coach all the students to reduce eye strain.
Only 14% knew the steps of using the fire extinguisher. We certainly have to train our children better in these basic safety techniques.

The second session was held by Kohinoor International School, Thane, on 26 Sep.  and they had also invited students from other schools in Thane to participate. This was indeed a generous gesture on their part.  This was a first for us – a Safety Quest specially designed  for students from Grades 1-4. We had 211 students and their parents join us in this event. A big shout out to Deepali Nene, Principal, and Jignasa Gala who helped us organize the event and mobilise the participation. The image on top was the specially designed invite that Walnut Knowledge Solutions created for this event. Here are the top 5 winners and their details:

• Anika Kajarekar
• Saanchi Nangare
• Dhyaara Jain
• Atharv Golatkar
• Hoorfatima

For both the events, the winners received gift vouchers for QShala sessions from Walnut Knowledge Solutions.

We received a good feedback from the participants/ parents. 73% felt that the format of the quiz was a very effective way to learn about safety.

Sharing a few comments here.
Thanks for an enriching session. -Saanchi Nangare
Wonderful session. – Anvay Gadgil
Quiz was amazing. – Vidhi Dessai
Really great session and worth spending time for awareness. – Tamanna Sinha & Anand Sinha
Super fun and it was learning for parents as well. – Naksh Makhija
Amazing and good initiative! – Atique Shagufta

It is heartening when we see that children have internalised some key messages. This is what they told us:
* Safety relates to both indoors as well as outdoor activities..
* Start a habit of using a checklist to reduce errors
* The importance of seatbelts, even in rear seats

Also, a big thanks to the team from Walnut Knowledge Solutions : Vaishnavi, Binila, Vindhya and Raghav.

Here are some pics.

SQ at Aryaan Study Circle

SQ at Kohinoor International School

May 31, 2020 : Safety Quest Amidst The Lockdown

A tiny virus entered the human community, traveled countries through its people and turned the world upside down.
The world came to a standstill.

As schools, colleges, factories and offices closed down, we too cancelled all the awareness sessions we were scheduled to hold. Schools and colleges shifted to online classes and we wondered how we could still continue to spread our message of safety. Our knowledge partners, Walnut Knowledge Solutions had already taken a step to adapt to these circumstances and had started conducting online courses for their flagship Qshala program, which also engages families in quiz programs on weekends. And so, we decided to ride on the Qshala platform to conduct a safety-themed quiz, Safety Quest, online. It wasn’t our usual Safety Quest format. But the team from Walnut did a great job in adapting the content and format to this online medium! They also did a great job in researching the recent developments, and adding some interesting new material.

This is a first for us. Thanks to the Internet, we were able to take this message across the globe. The quiz was held on the national and international level this time! The 31st May turned out to be so special for us.

The Safety Quest received great response in each of our 3 sessions! We had 330 families in Junior, 205 in Sub-Junior and 45 in International round. We had participants from Chennai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Vadodara, Rohtak, Nagpur, Vellore, Cuttack, Navsari, Uttar Kashi, Bhopal, Kolkata, Madurai, Mysore, Pune, Patiala, Tripura, Thane and Mumbai. And international audience from Tokyo, Toronto, Bristol, Copenhagen, Atlanta, Bristol,Dublin, Muscat, Karlsruhe, London, Oslo, California. It was fantastic to see active participation from so many different places. Indeed, it gives us the confidence that we have a mechanism to take Safety Quest to other places very effectively! As per the norms followed for the QShala platform the prizes for the various winners will be shared via Walnut Knowledge Solutions.

What is so exciting is that since this is a family quiz, the parents also joined these sessions and we were able to share safety tips with parents too. There were a few adults, who love quizzes and joined to engage the child in them.

The online platform also gives us an opportunity to seek some feeback on the sentiments of the participants. 92% of the participants said they learnt something out of it! This is very heartening to us.

We received this lovely message from Shalaka Thakur from Mumbai.
“The Arundhati Foundation supported Qshala SafetyQuest today has changed the way my family and I look at safety. Apart from being extremely informative, the way the questions were designed, compel one to think of, not just answers, but the issues underpinning these questions. It made learning about safety fun and engaging. The Arundhati Foundations quiz has really turned around my idea of how Safety Awareness can be spread. Although it was primarily targeted to reach children, I think ( speaking from experience ) that adults would find it equally interesting.”

This is what Bhavani, Class 8 student of Shishu Mandir School, Hellanagar Bangalore had to say. “Having had the opportunity of Qshala workshops last year, I was extremely excited by the thought of joining it. The best thing about this quiz is that we learn without even realising it! The online quiz we attended was very interesting and fun. Safety is a very important topic about which we need to be aware. It was also a good way to spend our lockdown. I would like to thank Shishu Mandir, The Arundhati Foundation and Walnut Knowledge Solutions for this and look forward to attend more of such sessions.”

A few other comments
“Very well researched questions, and fun watching smart kids.” .. Ashok Gapchup
“It was a great program and appreciate the efforts in inculcating safety in children at the right age” .. Ashok R
“The quiz was very very interesting today” .. Akshayalakshmi
“Sorry for the family’s loss, and thanks to them for the wonderful work they are doing” .. Rajiv Ratnam

We, are ever so grateful to Sachin Ravi, Raghav Chakravarty and the entire team of Walnut Knowledge Solutions for the wholehearted support in collaborating with us to help us spread the message of safety.

Attached are screen captures of the various quiz sessions to give you a feel of the audience.