Youth Skills Day is annually celebrated to enthuse the younger generation about the
importance of learning new skills which would benefit them in the future. In 2014, the United
Nations General Assembly declared 15 July as World Youth Skills Day. Since then, it has
been celebrated and this year was extra special as it coincided with the efforts to restore the
socio- economic downslide in the wake of the pandemic.
This year, IGCSE Y1, IGCSE Y2 and IBDP Y1 students of CPS Global School attended a
workshop where they learnt two new skills. Skills are not just academic skills or life skills;
they also fall in the category of procedural skills which help each individual to gain
experiential knowledge which can be very handy on a day-to-day basis, something as simple
as fixing an electrical fuse. We all have faced this issue at one time or the other and have
relied on our friendly handyman to do the job. But what about fixing the problem ourselves?
In that vein, the students had a hands-on experience with electrical work. Art and craft has
gained a lot of credence in the pandemic with DIY crafts and the students also honed their
skills in that area as well with learning the art of macrame.
The first half of the workshop, the students gathered in the Physics lab, where after a brief
introduction on the significance of the day, they engaged themselves in knowing the basics of
safety measures to be taken while handling basic electrical devices along with a live
demonstration of how to fix a fuse from a professional electrician, with more than 10 years of
hands-on training. He is none other than the in-house electrician, Mr. Parthiban of the GEC
campus. The Physics facilitator, Ms. Rahila Begum also helped the students to have hands-on
experience fixing the fuse. The students learnt about the components of a fuse, the reasons
why live wires, neutral wires and ground wires are needed in a plug, and safety measures we
must take in order to prevent getting electrical shocks.
For the second half of the workshop, the students indulged in a creative skill where they
learnt how to make keychains using macrame threads. Macrame is a technique that uses knots
to make items such as decor, jewellery, plant hangings, etc. This enhances skills in tying
knots, being patient, thinking creatively and much more. The students were given two
coloured threads and shown a demo on how to make the keychain by following the steps
accordingly. After finishing the base, they had to separate the strings and comb it out. After
which they trimmed the edges to form a shape of a leaf. Creative club facilitators, Ms.
Jagadeeshwari and Mr. Maanas aided the eager learners in this thoroughly engaging and
artistic activity. The satisfaction of having been able to learn a new skill and see the scope of
the same through the creative outcome was clearly visible on the beaming faces of the
learners. Indeed, a Saturday well invested for transforming the youth through learning two
very diverse skillsets.
