The teacherwho extends mentorship outside the classroom andgoes beyond the scope
of their job.The teacher who has touched your life in one way or another byhelpingyou
in times of distress and ensuring that you get the best possible outcome for a given
situation.It would be hard to find a student from St John’s High School who has
not been touched in some way or another by the teachers who taught them.All teachers
have contributed in some way to make us all intofine human beings that we aretoday.
Amongst them, someone special that you want to honour and recognize is the essence
of this award.
We as students must acknowledge the great role they played in transforming our lives
and the values we imbibed from them.Sponsoring an award and acknowledging the teacher
who taught us everything can be the most satisfying thing for both the donor & the
recipient. Friends, you will all agree that the common thread that binds us across
generations is our association with St Johns. A very important and valuable component
of school has been the 'Human Capital' which includes our retired teachers who have
mentored and guided us through our formative years. Now in the winter of their lives,
some of them face challenges of health, logistics and above all loneliness. The
retired teachers presently do not have any common platform or forum to meet and
interact with each other or with ex-students.
It is with this sentiment that we propose this 'Guru Dakshina' project which would
have the following features:
- To honour a Group of Retired Teachers with “The Guru Daksina Award” consisting of
a Citation, A Shawl & a Guru Dakshina Purse.
- Provide a platform to integrate all the retired teachers and other retired staff
members to provide them and us an opportunity to meet, sustain and support their
needs and aspirations.
- To arrange get-togethers at regular intervals over lunch where all retired teachers
would be invited to enable bonding and camaraderie.
- To prepare a directory of all our old retired teachers with updated contact details
to be distributed to each of them to enable connectivity. I feel this is a crying
need for older people feeling lonely and isolated (even within families) and not
having access to their old friends and colleagues.
- To provide basic medical insurance/ health care plan for those retired teachers
who qualify as per insurance norms.
- To prepare a task force of Johnian Volunteers from amongst:-
- Doctors
- Lawyers
- Bureaucrats
- Bankers, Financial Advisors, Tax consultants & Insurance Agents
