By Jacob Peenikaparambil
Indore, Dec 30, 2019: The Indore-based Universal Solidarity Movement (USM) and the Honesty Foundation Goa on December 30 honored 11 students of 11 schools from six states with the Honesty Award 2019.
Since 2012, the Honesty Foundation Goa has awarded students who are honest in practising the values they imbibe from the USM programs.
Bishop Chacko Thottumarickal of Indore, the chief guest, and Bharat Chaparwal, a former vice chancellor of Devi Ahaliya Viswa Vidyalaya, the guest of honor gave away the awards comprising 10,001 rupees and a memento and certificate at a function held at Prerana Sadan, the Indore diocesan pastoral center.
The award was launched following Honesty Foundation founder Bernardo D’Souza, an industrialist from Goa, raised the question: “Why not I do something which nobody has done so far?”
The answer was the birth of the foundation on December 30, 2012. D’Souza decided together with his wife Domino and children to give back a part of his income to society through Honesty Foundation for promoting honesty and encouraging honest people.
The foundation entrusted USM the task of selecting the awardees and organizing the award function.
Addressing the gathering Bishop Thottumarickal expressed happiness that Indore has been declared the cleanest city in India by the the Swatch Bharat Mission three times consecutively.
“Along with external cleanliness we need internal purity. The students who are honoured today are internally pure because of their honesty,” the Divine Word prelate said. He appealed the audience to take inspiration from D’Souza and the 11 students and become heralds of honesty”.
Chaparwal in his address referred to the present unrest in society and the response of the youth to what is happening in the country. He appreciated the youth for voicing forcefully against dishonest and divisive policies being implemented in the country today. While appreciating the awardees he appealed to them to be honest to the legacy of the freedom fighters and to the values enshrined in the Constitution of India.
The students who received honesty awards are 1) Aliasger Merchant of Don Bosco Academy Alirajpur 2) Aishwarya Singh of St. Mary’s Convent Senior Secondary School, Bhopal, 3) Ayanika Chauhan of Holy Angels Convent School, Muzzafar Nagar 4) Faiza Bagban of Auxilium Convent School, Lonavala, Maharashtra 5) Hiranya Soni of St. Mary’s Convent Senior Secondary School, Teetardi, Udaipur, Rajastan 6) Laksh Dua of St. Antony’s Secondary School, Faridabad 7) Lavesh Mathur of St. Teresa’s School, Mansarovar, Jaipur, 8) Ojaswini Thakur of St. Theresa’s School, Bhopal 9) Sheetal Pushpika Thirkey of Ursline Convent School, Gumla, Jharkhand 10) Tanishka Joshi of Carmel Convent Senior Secondary School, Neemuch, MP 11) Vivek Ravindra Lankeswar of St. Joseph English High School, Buldana, Maharashtra.