Student Social Entrepreneurs Honored

An Evening to Remember

On November 8th 2014 students were honored for their creativity and the impact of their social entrepreneurship. The evening began with Varun Ahuja and Bryce Cai both from BHS explaining their experience at the UN Youth Assembly in New York in August this year. Varun and Bryce qualified as delegates because of two long-standing charitable projects they have been involved with for some years now. These projects were conducted by a group of students through Chess Without Borders in collaboration with District 220 schools, teachers and the community.

One of the projects funded plastic surgery for a little girl who was severely burned in a fire when she was an infant. This project engaged a vast network of students from Barrington to Berlin, Germany. This little girl lives in the slums of Delhi and when District 220 alum, Nina Sethi (who was volunteering as a teacher in this slum) discovered that there was no medical help for her she invited Chess Without Borders to do something to help her. Five years later this little girl named Meher is an excellent student and another charity was born thanks to the creativity of our social entrepreneurs. Meher is being educated by funds raised at Annual Chess Tournaments held at Hough Street School for the last 6 years. Around $50,000 has been raised so far to make these projects possible.

The 2nd long-standing project was the creation of a computer center in this slum school run by Project Why. Project Why is a non governmental organization that brings services to children and families living in the slums of Delhi, India. The computer center is named after District 220 teacher Maggie Gruber who was instrumental at bringing chess to Barrington along with Rishi Sethi and Dr Cindy Kalogeropoulos. The Maggie Gruber Computer Center honors her work. 300 students from this slum use this center. A preliminary documentary made by students was seen during the evening so that families could see the impact of the work done by these special entrepreneurs.

The evening was significant because Dr Rakesh Khazanchi who was inspired by the services of students volunteered to do the surgery for Meher in 2009. He showed slides of the surgery he performed on Meher and was an inspiration to all who were lucky to meet him. Dr Khazanchi is the Director of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Medanta Hospital in Delhi, India.

Robert Said, 8th grader from Prairie Middle School provided entertainment for the evening with his talented performance of Flamingo music on his guitar.

The honors for the students were held at the home of Dr Shona Ahuja. Award winning cook Zein Bertacchi, a Microbiologist from Good Shepherd Hospital and her sister Rima Said treated the guests to a gourmet Middle East dinner.

Video about the Maggie Gruber Computer Center is at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOZo-9fVHmM

Video about the Meher project is at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1ZwXA6osEo

Photograph of student volunteers with Dr Khazanchi are:

Standing (from Lt to Rt)

Varun Ahuja, Bryce Cai, Toby Schwartz, Jack Bradley, Millen Srivastava, Jane Bradley, Lyle Green, Zachary Green, Eleanore Marvijk van Kooy, Sahitya and Sanjaya Maheswaran, Dr Rakesh Khazanchi, Robert Said

Sitting down (from Lt to Rt) are Vishal Ahuja, Jeevan Srivastava, Sophia Cai

Utkarsh Sehgal, Sophia Cai and Aakarsh Sehgal

Not in the photograph but also present was Prathik Kandimala from BMS