Morning meetings at STEM Land

~ Jayabharathy

We celebrated the 10th birthday of STEM Land on 09/10/2025. The event took place from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. Our team members, along with students, set up various stalls showcasing either their projects or what STEM Land meant to them and what inspired them.

My name is Jayabharathy and I stand for care and courage for myself and others. Morning meetings are one of the unique aspects of our organization that inspires me and my stall was about these. The meetings give us the space to connect with one another and begin the day with calmness and gentle smiles. Every day at 7:50 a.m., we gather in the ISMART room for about an hour. Each morning, we have a different activity designed to support both our personal growth and the collective growth of our team.

Here is a brief summary of our morning routine.

Monday: We start the week with a physical activity, Vipassana, and reflection on teaching notes, followed by feedback from Sanjeev Anna.

On other days, we begin with 2 minutes of physical activity and 10 minutes of Vipassana, followed by different activities each day.

Tuesday: We learn through an educational video, reflection writing, and group sharing guided by Sanjeev Anna.

Wednesday: We practice RTL tools individually or in groups, share insights, and receive coaching and feedback.

Thursday: We read the RTL book together, discuss meanings with Sanjeev Anna, and share our understanding and examples.

Friday: Technical sessions, members present their work, code reviews, etc. We review, discuss, and collaborate to solve technical challenges and learn together.

Saturday: We reflect on the week, write acknowledgments and insights, share them, and display them on the notice board.

For me, morning meetings have always felt like starting a fresh page in a book. I love being present there. In my previous organization, we often didn’t even know if staff from other departments were around on a given day. It was all about work and there was no space for connection, smiles, or a fresh start. Whenever we met, it was usually only for official discussions. This contrast between the two organizations inspired me to set up a stall about our morning meetings. I wanted to show that STEM Land is not just another organization focused only on its own growth or profit, but a space that inspires people to live consciously and joyfully while contributing something meaningful to the world. I feel that the morning meetings serve as one of its most supportive aspects.

I created chart work using six different sheets to highlight our morning meeting activities so that visitors could easily go through them. Since covering everything would be too lengthy, I included only key points on the charts and shared more details during my explanation. I also collected reflections from our team about their experience of morning meetings and I displayed neatly on the notice board along with the Saturday acknowledgements.

I thought that younger children might not stay engaged with a purely explanation-based stall. Remembering Sanjeev Anna’s suggestion to make it interactive, I decided to create a spin wheel. When spun, it would stop at a particular day, and I prepared simple questions related to our morning meetings and their daily routines. The game attracted many children. They were eager to spin the wheel, learn about the stall, and explore the charts and acknowledgments.

Even adults joined in with curiosity. I felt fulfilled seeing how the interactive setup helped convey our message in a fun and meaningful way. I felt enthusiastic while preparing for the activity. It gave me a different exposure of how to convey information in a meaningful way. I feel grateful for being a part of the entire event and for contributing my work to it.