Humanity, Mercy and Love: A Journey from Shahid to Mozilla Uncle

Friday, February 14, 2014

A Journey from Shahid to Mozilla Uncle

Webmaker Kitchen Party, Allahabad

12 January 2014

I am delighted to share my experience of very first Webmaker event at Allahabad. It was an amazing experience to have lots of FUN with kids.

I hosted Webmaker Kitchen Party for Kids at Allahabad on 12th January 2014. Initially this event was planned to be hosted in a school at Allahabad. But due to sudden fall in temperature, city administration announced holidays for school kids for a week. As a result, I have changed the venue of the event from school to my home. I invited some 30 kids, few engineering students and some house wives from my locality for the event, I wanted to invite even more kids but due to space constraint I could not do it. There was a mixed crowd of class 3rd to class 12th, engineering students, house wives etc.

The kids were so excited to attend the event and gathered at my home well before the event's time.

The event was also attended by following Mozillians.

1. Rahul Ranjan, RMA FSA, IIIT Allahabad
2. Raid Ahmad, RMA FSA, MIT Meerut
3. Charul Agarwal, FSA, IIIT Allahabad
4. AdityaChaturvedi, FSA IIIT Allahabad
5. Jatin Mehta, FSA IIIT Allahabad
6. Tayyab Isfahani, Mozillian, Kanpur

Since It was a very first Mozilla event for most of the RMA and FSAs, we all sat together and had a brief discussion about various Mozilla products like Webmaker, Firefox OS, Firefox Browser, Persona, Firebug, Localization, MDN, FSA Program, WoMoz, FOSS etc. I found this event as a good platform to meet and interact with RMAs and FSAs of my region, I am glad to meet them for the first time.

The event started with my very basic introductory talk about Mozilla, Mozilla Products, Mozilla Projects, Webmaker and various Webmaker tools.

Then Rahul Ranjan, RMA talked about FSA Program, kids of 12th standard looked very interested in the FSA Program.

Then Rais Ahmad, RMA MIT Meerut briefed about Webmaker and gave demo on its various tools.

Then FSAs, Charul, Jatin and Aditya gave a basic talk on 'What is a computer and how to protect it', 'What is an E-Mail ID and how it works' and 'What is a search engine and how to search information on Google'.

Now, we have reached to "Teaching and Learning" session for kids. We formed various groups, each group was consist of maximum 3 kids. We then made the pair of groups. Pair of groups asked to teach at least one topic (what ever they want) to each another. Volunteers were helping them in making the groups, selecting the topic to teach and learn etc. We allowed 20 minutes for this session. At last, we invited one member from each group to tell all the attendees about what they have taught or learnt. Kids enjoyed a lot this session and they learnt 'how to prepare maggi', 'rules in badminton, rules in cricket etc.

Now It was a time for drawing and design competition for Kids. We asked kids to design and color the Firefox and Webmaker logo.

One can see the enthusiasm and dedication of kids in following photo.

Here is some of the kid's creations.

We selected two best drawings and announced as winner. Winners got Webmaker T-shirt and Firefox Bag :)

We distributed color box and drawing pad to all the kids as a token of participation and consolation prize . Kids were so happy to get these goodies.

At last Kids were so happy to attend the event, it was a very different experience for them. They were happy to get color box, drawing pad and a very delicious snack pack :). Many kids are now calling me as MOZILLA UNCLE, I am simply loving it. :) :) :)

Now Its a time for group and individual clicks with Firefox vertical banner.