Learning Utsav, an opportunity to learn and teach from others without any age barriers – at the campus this brings an opportunity. The organizing and preparing for the Utsav bring a bigger opportunity to explore different aspects of self and learning.
Making of products to sell – sampling, quality check, feedback, costing, advertising and facing the customers…all in one experience. Some disappointment, some joy, some success, some give up, some optimistic, some eager to make, some leaving it thereafter, some fun, and some joy of creating.
Designing opening circle and closing circle – churning, preparing, notes, practice, music arrangement, understanding mic, facing the audience, and finally executing – some excitement, some nervousness, some new, some old, some fun, and some joy of experiencing
Preparing campus – washing, cleaning, organizing, decorating, connecting with the neighborhood. Some tired, some eager, some committed, some involved, some fun, and some joy of togetherness.
Making food items – make samples, make again samples, make more samples till the satisfied quality, costing, buying grocery, again costing, making it for bigger quantity, setting up and selling and facing the customers, Some failures, some success, some profit, some tiredness, some commitment, some fun, and some joy of doing.
And Organising – co-creating, Todo list, Publicity, posters, and communication designing and coordinating.
And some reflection to grow in our learning journey
This was my first learning utsav and it was fun. from the start till the end I was energetic and active and also interacted with people. I put a session on odissi, I could have done more preparation for the stall because it got over 10 min before the other stalls but it went well. I also put up a stall which failed because people didn’t buy my products, only two pairs of earnings were sold. so next time come up with new products to sell and should be sellable.
so I didn’t put up any stall but I was helping some people in selling there products. And the session I put up was a game called werewolf. It was in my comfort zone and expected a lot of people to come and a lot of people came but it took too long for one game so we could only do one round.
Chutney podi stall- many people don’t buy it. 5 got sold. Some of them said they had already bought, some said they have made it at home. I was a little sad and a little bit happy. I was excited about selling. While I was making I was satisfied.
One person came who knew Tamil. Those who came to learn learnt few sentences in that 45 minutes rest of the time they were joking and having fun. Sometimes they were not listening to me. The session was fine.
My feelings during the week are excitement bit nervous because I was not ready with my products and I had not made some preparations for the learning stall, because of the nervousness I spent a lot of time making the products I also felt that the products were not enough so that’s why I missed thought club sports and a lot of things were running in my head. On learning utsav day I was stressed in the starting because some stalls costing was not yet done but I managed to do it. When the utsav started the game I made people play I think it went pretty smooth and one good thing was I was confident on stage. And while selling my products I was a little angry because no one was coming to my stall bit after every one ate few people bought my products and few people gave very nice feedbacks which I will work on.
This time I was not involved in stalls and I was not participating. I was in my comfort zone going to sessions that are easy for me. I was not following the second law of moving away from places that was not adding value to me. Next time I would want to strictly go to stalls that are out of my comfort zone.
The learning stall I put up wasn’t very clear because we split it into two parts where we got a bit confused, clarity would have helped to take the stall, I should have planned my learning stall a bit earlier with roopak uncle, most of the things that we discussed did get covered but not all of it. the selling stall my reflection would be that the display of my earrings could be better then I would be more organised.
When I come back to Aarohi on Monday I don’t have any idea then me and my friend decided to make buttermilk and sell for 10 rupees each for a glass of buttermilk and we both made 110 each and it’s a good experience and we also showed all of them how to make a pot so I enjoyed it very much and it’s a good experience for me.
Initially, when designing and making the goods I was going to selling, I wasn’t sure how many to make and while designing/making them, I only took calculated risks. For example, in the design for the badges, I tried to making them in a way that the design would be appealing to everyone, the colors, shapes, etc. Simple and not complicated designs with straight forward subjects, nothing too abstract. After showing it to a couple of people for general thoughts and feedbacks about the things that I was going to sell, I felt pretty proud and glad that the efforts that I put in was useful. While selling them, I thought the quality of the goods were good and the pricing was just right, around 1/4th of the customers said that they were too costly but I managed to sell most of my goods with a pricing that didn’t put my business in a loss. After the selling was over, the sales number was high compared to my expectations and I got really happy. Later, after doing the final accounts, I got to know how much I actually earned. Some learnings – Making prototypes is a really good idea when selling, using spaces like learning utsav to observe the response that you will received from the customers to different types of products like food, stationary, accessories, etc is a good idea, customers look at all aspects in the badges so making the writing and drawings relatable to a wider range of customers will be helpful to be able to make the badges connect to more people, unique qualities in your product make them stand out and gives a reason to the customer to buy them even if they think that it’s expensive, talking about the product and it’s behind the scenes work can influence people to buy it, don’t expect a lot of net profit especially in a small business, the making cost is almost the same the inventory cost but that will change when making more products thus increasing the net profit for larger businesses and it’s important to have a balance of different activities in my daily routine, even when I’m doing the preparations.
This Learning Utsav was all about co-creating for me. Initially, I was feeling no energy or motivation to work on it. It kept getting pushed down in my Todo list, thus even publicity work started late. When we did the first Jatre of Learning Utsav and everyone had so much energy in them, I got motivated and piped up to give my 100% to the event. I loved how everyone called and invited people with so much enthusiasm and how together we made posters. I enjoyed the magic of co-creating. I no longer felt like the onus of the event was on me, It was a community organised event. That’s what really happened, everybody in the community – children, mentors, akkas, annas, parents put so much hard work and energy into the event. I like how I handled organising and preparation of the event patiently, calmly and took no stress. I worked with clarity and made sure the work was done well. I am happy with the way opening circle and closing circle went. The design and implementation were good. When I spoke in front of the audience, I spoke with clarity and confidence. I learnt patience and working with ease within me I experienced confidence in myself during preparation and the event. In the Next Learning Utsav, I am looking forward to work on better publicity so we get more people at the event.
Imagine Aarohi, a learning community where we learn from life for life throughSELF DISCOVERY