LIFE LESSONS AT SCHOOL

Vandana Verma is a teacher with the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board. Born in India and raised in Canada, she began her teaching career in 2002. In 2003, she joined Prince of Wales Elementary School and has been there since.

“This is a K to 8, inner-city school,” says Verma. “Our students face many difficult situations and come to school with a variety of issues. I love working there and truly want to make a difference in the lives of my students, their families, the community and my colleagues. This motivated me to develop the Just One Wish Kindness Program in 2013 and it continues to guide me.” 

The Just One Wish Kindness Program began as a positive school climate program and has turned into so much more, including a full education program for educators and parents.

Its website provides an outline of how the program operates at the school as well as free lessons.

These lessons created and written by Verma, and connected to colourful and imaginative picture books, help educators and parents connect reading strategies with character education.

These lessons, as well as other teaching materials she has created, are also found on Verma’s Teachers Pay Teachers store and are free to download. 

Verma has written, illustrated and self-published two books, The Just One Wish Character Alphabet Book and The Wishing Tree.

“I have a few other projects that will hopefully be self-published soon!” she adds.

In 2020 during the lockdown, she created the Let’s Talk Kindness YouTube puppet show.

She made all the puppets, wrote the scripts, and produced the videos. A friend of hers wrote and performed the title song and a few other friends helped with the voices.

Each episode is approximately seven minutes long and has lessons with worksheets.

“I’ve completed two seasons and had excellent feedback from both educators and parents,” says Verma. “I strongly believe that kindness is the solution to all of the world’s problems. If we all learned to listen to, try to understand and have empathy and compassion for one another, we could overcome barriers and make this a world where everyone and our environment were valued.”

Verma began the Just One Wish Kindness Awards in 2015 to honour and recognize children between the ages of 4 to 18 for being P.I.N.K. (positive, inspirational, noble, kind – a phrase coined by her).

They take place every year during the It’s Your Festival’s Canada Day celebrations in Gage Park in Hamilton.

The 2023 nominations are open and can be found on her website under Kindness Awards. More info at www.justonewishkindnessprogram.com.

• If you’d like to share the story of your arrival in Canada, please write to desinews@rogers.com or call 416-695-4357.