Education and skill development has a very large influence in breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty. However, there is an absence of market-oriented curricula in educational institutes and lack of quality vocational training which makes it difficult for students to be equipped with relevant skills demanded by the market. According to a report by UNICEF, more than 50% of young people in India will not have the requisite skills for employment by 2030. Hence, youth has to be equipped with 21st century skills to gain employment in the future.
Canva for GOOD is an attempt by a team of TribesforGOOD students composed of Ruchita Nair, Harivansh Rathi, Krishang Goel, Krish Patwari and Gatik Yadav. They conducted a 5-day workshop for students from government schools in rural Maharashtra with the objective of introducing the Canva tool and making them confident in using the tool on their own.
But, Why Canva? Is it a 21st-century skill? We say yes!
Canva is a graphic design platform founded by Melanie Perkins that allows us to easily create social media posts, professional presentations, invitations, business cards, flyers, lesson plans, zoom backgrounds, and many other creatives using professionally designed templates. It has a huge library of resources and it is notable how one doesn’t need to be a professional designer to use these features. In just a few clicks, one can create an engaging design with these tools. Keeping the utility of this powerful tool, TribesforGOOD launched the ‘Canva for Good’ campaign in collaboration with the Thinksharp Foundation.
THE JOURNEY
DAY 1 – Breaking the Ice!
The first day of the workshop witnessed a lot of nervous faces but the team did an excellent job by conducting ice-breaking activities to establish a good rapport with the participating students. Student–teacher Harivansh started the session by discussing the importance of the workshop and the requirements i.e. what the team expects from the students in terms of their participation and the home assignments given to them. The tool was introduced to the students and later its practical uses, and its basic functionalities such as color palettes, fonts, editing, collaboration, designing, downloading, and saving were explained in a detailed manner. Thanks to the proper guidance, the students understood their roles and responsibilities and were pretty much comfortable in learning the app’s basic functionalities.
A big part of the culture setting was to create a safe space for the NGO students so that they didn’t hesitate in using the Google Meet’s chat box feature during the session. However, it became the most game-changing feature as throughout the workshop students engaged extensively in the chatbox to clear their doubts. This also gave the student-teachers the confidence that students are mastering a topic so that they can move ahead.
DAY 2 – Small steps with Posters
The session for the second day was led by Krishang. The students did a wonderful job on their assignments given on day 1 and seemed very excited for the upcoming sessions. The goal of the session was to create a poster using the Canva features. First, the students were taught what a poster is, its uses, and how it will benefit them in the school projects. A poster is a temporary promotion of an idea, product or event put up in a public space for mass consumption. The best advantage of poster making is that it facilitates teamwork and understanding along with facilitating creative thinking and extensive research and reading. It provides students with an opportunity to learn by doing, in turn strengthening the learning.
The process of making a poster in Canva starts with selecting the right size and then choosing a template of your choice. Then all you need to do is select and drag the content you want in your poster, and adjust the colors and fonts according to your preferences. Voila! You have a cool poster ready in just a few minutes.
The students understood the importance of a poster and carefully followed the instructions given to them. Very soon, they were creating amazing posters on their own. By the end of the session, the students’ Canva skills seemed to have strengthened than what it was before since we were able to witness a lot of happy and confident faces.
DAY 3 – Getting confident with Presentations
On the third day of the workshop, the students of the NGO were eagerly waiting to see what was in store for them. By this time, the students started creating posters on varied topics, way beyond what was covered in the class! A few students even created posters on a Biology topic that was being taught in their school.
The agenda for the session was to help the students create a presentation. Compared to MS PowerPoint, Canva allows for more sophisticated designs without being tricky to use. The steps to create a presentation using Canva:
1. Start a new presentation by opening up Canva and then search for the ‘Presentation’ design type.
2. Choosing from creative presentation templates, start-up decks and education slides and more.
3. We can now customize our design by uploading our own photos, logo and other elements. We can add as many slides we want and edit the template in many creative ways to get a truly engaging presentation.
4. Present with flair.
The students properly understood the process of creating a presentation and were pretty confident about the skills. Towards the end of the session, we were able to see a lot of spectacular presentations. Student – teacher, Ruchita Nair gave the students their final home assignment i.e. to work a presentation for the class
DAY 4 – Revise, Revise, Revise
The fourth day was used as a revision day led by Krish Patwari. It was time to recall and practice all the skills and information that the team taught them during the entire duration of the workshop. The results were amazing. The NGO students started creating posters on varied topics, way beyond what was covered in the class. A few students created posters on a Biology topic that was being taught in their school. They have grown confident in their skills and the designs that were created were much better than the ones they made before. This made Ruchita so happy that she decided to create an Instagram account so that she could showcase her student’s amazing works to everyone.
DAY 5 – Graduation Day!
Graduation led by host Gatik was a marvelous event and went really well. The students got to showcase all their work through self-made presentations, and each of them did an awesome job at it. From being nervous to presenting in front of a crowd with full confidence, the students sure came a long way and the entire team was very proud of what they did. We also had an honorable guest, Amit Kutwal Sir, who was impressed and happy by the outcome of the camp. He even mentioned that he and his team of teachers would also like to learn Canva from the students.
Saying goodbye is always the hardest part of these workshops because we might never see those students again. But we are proud that all the students were successfully able to complete the course. Before saying goodbye, the students gave some heartwarming feedback to their teachers. Their words not only encourage the team to continue with teaching, but also motivate them to keep improving themselves and always aim for the best in their lives.
Conclusion
Through the CanvaforGOOD project, the TFG team was able to equip the students from Thinksharp with basic Canva skills. They were eager to implement what they had been taught, and were confident to do it on their own. What really worked well for the TFG student-teachers was the synergy and cohesiveness with which they operated. They were always eager to help each other and pitch in whenever one of them fumbled. Harivansh shouldered a big responsibility during Krishang’s session when the latter faced technical difficulties. It is all their pure hard work and dedication that this workshop turned out to be a huge success.
Student Tribe
Ruchita Nair, Grade 11, Amity International School Mayur Vihar
Harivansh Rathi, Grade 12, Modern School Vasant Vihar
Krishang Goel, Grade 10, Amity International School, Noida
Krish Patwari, Grade 11, La Martiniere for Boys
Gatik Yadav, Grade 12, Amity International School
The authors are TribesforGOOD students working on reducing poverty using education programs through the Global Challenges & Social Justice program.
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