Country: India

Organization: Loreto Day School, Sealdah

Idea: If children from an early age are exposed to situations of injustice and given the skills to act to remove the injustice, they learn from experience that society can be changed and that they can play their part in changing it. The entire school is geared to this reaching out to others to make change effective and also to joining hands with others in the struggle for . refer to www.loretosealdah.com. The school admits 50% children from slums and 50% from well off families on equal footing. All begin to teach, as part of their curriculum, from the age of 10 yrs. They teach street children and rural children and have regular Value Education classes for reflection on what they do and why they do it. Teachers and parents are likewise drawn in.

How do you do it: Integrate these reach out activities as a compulsory part of the curriculum,so every child has an enjoyable experien ce & goes home to share with parents.As they welcome stre et children throughout the school day,teach them at their work education time and get them ready for school accordi ng to their age in one year b)work in rural schools on weekly holiday c)reach out child labour and persuade their employers to send them to school ii)Dialouge & reflection with teachers and parents on the values which these activities teach.Let parents perceive their childýs growth in character and responsibility and ability to take some hardship for othersý benefit.iii)Gear the school infrastructure to community and not competitive values.

Innovation: Because it exposes the students to situations and gives them the skills to enable them to change them. 68 million children in India do not go to school. How can students build a more ethical society if they are allowed to ignore their peer group blocked out. Hence Loreto Sealdah train its students from age 10 to tackle this problem, at their own level and as they grow up at the activity and advocacy levels, since they have experienced the situations at first hand. Hence, all our 600 secondary students are trained and challenged to see the children as equals and give them their dignity, so essential to equality and justice.

Impact: Every year our young people move out carrying these values all over India and abroad. They are doctors, teachers, journalists, social workers, social activists, programme managers for NGOs, working in UNICEF, UNESCO and home makers brining up children, each one building a more ethical society in her own milieu, be it at regional or national level.

Ethical Action: One of our Class VIIIs (14 yr old) was going over to the station to provide lunch to some abandoned widows and on the way she saw a police constable take an apple off a poor fruit vendorýs stall and walk away eating it without paying. She accosted him and very politely requested him to pay, pointing out the poverty of the vendor. The policeman complied.

Replication: The school receives many invitations from Principals who have observed our education in building an Ethical Society and went to replicate it.So far we have given over one thousand such courses and our book called ýWe are the Worldý which provides guidelines for ýbuilding a more ethical societyý has sold well over one million copies.

Sustainability: It is already self sustainable as it aims at the internal transformation (i.e. of the heart)of the school, and once this is understood, it will sustain and propagate itself.

Position in the Ethics Mosaic of Solutions:

Factor: Ignorance of consequences

Principle: Developing self-awareness and interconnectedness