Nirmaan Enterprises-An endeavour by St.Mark's Sr. Sec. Public School,Meera Bagh: October 2017

“Challenges are what make a business interesting. Overcoming them is what makes a business successful.”

After setting up our business we faced many challenges, which usually follow. But the biggest challenge we faced was to bring the best out of our members and always keep them motivated to achieve their goals. Our team comprised of students of grade 9^th, 10^th and 11^th.

On being asked why the students wish to be part of Nirmaan one of the students said- “I want to be a part of Nirmaan as I wish to takeover my father’s business in future. So, I am going to pursue Commerce in 11^th and I believe being part of an enterprise at an early stage will help me understand the functioning of market.” Another student said – “I want to be a part of Nirmaan because it will polish many skills of mine like teamwork, communication and patience.” Some said it was their urge to contribute to the society as Nirmaan aims at the upbringing of woman by providing them employment.

"Coming together is a beginning

Staying together is a progress

And working together is success."

As entrepreneurs, starting a business brings out many different emotions, including passion, excitement and impatience. All these can be used to motivate the students to work hard and try to put their best efforts in the business.

With a team consisting of members with such mixed goals and aims it looked like a difficult task. But to motivate the students we divided them into 6 departments-

1. Marketing

2. IT

3. Creative

4. Production

5. Accounts

6. HR and Advisory department

This distribution now gave them the responsibility of the departments they wished to be a part of. Each of these departments were headed by one or two students. In this way we were able to distribute the work among everyone and were able to bring the best out of them.
Also we motivated them to get involved in the working of other departments too so that they can get an idea about its working and contribute.

Students who were good with accounts were given the duty to maintain proper records of the payment made for raw material, money earned by selling the finished products, profits/loss, etc. Below are a few images of the records that were maintained by the students

Students who were creative were given the task to implement the changes suggested by the customers and those good with computers were given the task to write blogs, use Facebook and Twitter for popularity, communication, etc.

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul."

Here we see the students putting their creativity out to work

Are the students really motivated?

To know whether the students were really motivated, what has been the impact of being a part of an enterprise in their life and what are the skills they have gained from this undertaking we conducted a small survey. A few of the answers that we received were-

Student 1- “I joined Nirmaan firstly because I was interested to be a part of an enterprise and get some experience from its work, secondly it was for a good cause. Nirmaan has always shown me how things have to be managed and what is required in building our own enterprise to a good level, I have got a reason to be a constant part of it, also it gives me a view of my future.
I aspire to be an entrepreneur and being a part of this enterprise has given me an insight of an enterprise and shows me how to run it successfully!”- Navya Aggarwal

Student2-"I joined Nirmaan because I wanted to learn the skill of entrepreneurship and I love art and craft and I wanted to use my creative outputs for some good purpose.I was motivated by the way our seniors and teachers were dedicated towards this business and were working hard to make the women self-reliant.
Being a member of Nirmaan helped me a lot as it teaches me how can we be happy by bringing a smile on other's face. Also I learned the skills of team work, leadership, marketing, and also how to make any new creative things.- Manpreet Kaur

Student 3-"I joined Nirmaan because it could help me in learning new business skills that I probably won’t get a chance to otherwise.I was motivated by the efforts our school has taken and really wanted to help in this initiative because this is something that we don’t get to do in our daily lives.
Nirmaan has taught me a lot of things- being innovative, handling business, managing work and time and all over helped in changing my attitude towards helping people and how important it is. - Ishika Chauhan

Student 4 -"Being a commercce student..Nirmaan helps me to gain practical knowledge of business studies.It makes me responsible and teaches various skills like management and teamwork which will help lifelong.
Nirmaan is a business enterprise that helps the economically weaker section of the society. This attracts and motivates me the most to be the part of it.- Jyoti Gogia

Here we see students interacting with the customers, sharpening their communication skills.

"Teamwork makes the dream work."

Here are a few images of students working together as a team.

The following video is of our Principal Mrs. Anjali Aggarwal sharing her thoughts on student motivation.

https://youtu.be/XCjeM0j1SPo

What did the school do to motivate the students?

Since the students have been working so hard it is the duty of the school to continue motivating them. So, the most enterprising and hardworking students are awarded each year with a trophy and certificate. By doing this the school isn't just motivating the award winners but also inspiring other members to work hard. Below are a few pictures of the students receiving their awards by our honourable Principal Ma'am.

Heartfelt comment by our teacher incharge:

This venture is close to my heart as its been 6 years long association with this project. It gives me immense satisfaction when i see that every year more and more students from our school want to be part of Nirmaan team and do something for the local community. At the same time they develop many skills like leadership, teamwork, management, entrepreneurial, marketing and gain a lot of confidence. All this remains with them throughout their life.
School Enterprise Challenge plays a crucial role by giving schools a platform to showcase the hidden talent of students internationally and at the same time achieve the goals of the people, profit and planet.

The following link is of a video of two members of our enterprise sharing their experience of being a part of the team.

https://youtu.be/D44DxHXqPpM

School Enterprise Challenge

We are very thankful to the School Enterprise Challenge for providing us this platform to share about our business. After winning an award in Mini Blogging Competition last year we feel that these monthly competitions have encouraged and motivated the students to work even harder. We look forward to share more about our business with the School Enterprise Challenge this year.

Reviews students' parents of our school

To know whether the parents were satisfied with the working of the Enterprise, we did a small survey:

Parent 1: I am highly impressed by seeing the teamwork of the staff of Nirmaan Enterprise. Each child is giving their best to improve the working and for the betterment of the Enterprise. All the members are gaining important skills such as leadership, marketing,etc. which would help them in future.

Parent 2: I would love my child to be a part of Nirmaan Enterprise too. It gives a lot of confidence to the child in terms of speaking. A child also learns the skill of entrepreneurship. As my child wants to opt for business studies in higher class, being a part of this Enterprise would help in learning business skills.

Parent 3: I am happy to see an Enterprise working for the upbringing of women by providing them employment. The students are also developing their skills. These children are sure to be great entrepreneurs in their future.