Akanksha Update May 2008

The Akanksha Foundation is a non-profit organization that educates less privileged children. Over the past 17 years, Akanksha has managed to create opportunities for over

3000 children through 64 Akanksha centers (37 in Mumbai and 27 in Pune) 2 schools & 4 KG centres.

Akanksha National

The Akanksha School Leadership Institute opened with a 2 1/2 week training spread across Lonavla, Mumbai and Ahmedabad.  New Education Leaders were introduced to Akanksha through a series of trainings on education, leadership and management, and were exposed to The Riverside School in Ahmedabad.  Akanksha Education Leaders come from Kolkata, Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai and will undergo a year of training and set-up to open Akanksha Academies or new clusters of Akanksha centers.

Akanksha is looking to establish contacts in Bangalore and Kolkata to set up schools in both cities by June 2009.  Anyone interested in getting involved should contact Vandana Goyal at leadership@akanksha.org.

In June, the Supari Tank Municipal School project will re-open along with the Kala Chowki Municipal School project with KG classes.  Also in Pune, an Akanksha Education Leader, Anindita Bannerji, will open the Savitri Bai Phule school, a Pune Municipal Corporation and Thermax Social Initiatives Foundation joint venture.

            Akanksha Mumbai             

Education

This month was summer break for the centers so teachers and kids got a little time to relax and get set for the new year.  However, the education department was more than busy preparing for the new academic year as well as for the second Akanksha Training Institute.

The Training Institute which comprises three components – Residential training, Education Convention and a practical training – started on the 18th of May with a week long Residential Training for new teachers. This was a great opportunity for the new teachers to get to know each other and the staff, understand the Akanksha culture and vision and their roles as teachers and leaders.

From the 26th of May to the 31st of May, 2008, the Education Convention was held at St. Xaviers College, Mumbai. The convention was attended by all new as well as returning teachers and it provided them with concrete tools to use in their classrooms as well as with an opportunity to get to know each other.

The keynote speakers at the convention were Jo Chopra from the Latika Roy Foundation and Shukla Bose from Parikrma. It was wonderful for the teachers and staff to hear their stories and feel inspired by them.

For the convention we had guest trainers from the American School, Mumbai and Ummeed as well as a few others who took time out to come and conduct sessions for the teachers. It was really a great teaching and learning experience for the team.

The convention was also open to some other schools and so we had teachers from some private schools also attend the convention.

May also saw the revised curriculum finalized and printed. The education team spent time putting together materials for centers which are starting on the 2nd of June.

However, we still are very concerned about centre spaces and would appreciate any suggestions or help in this matter. Our center at Colaba Municipal School, Colaba, is still without a space and have resumed the new year in a public garden. The center has been running out of a public garden since January.  We would need space during the week from 8:30 am to 11:30 am. Three of the Worli centers located one building will lose their spaces by the end of this July. We need a morning (9-11:30am) and afternoon (3-5:30pm) space in Worli and a morning (9-11:30am) and afternoon (3-5:30pm) space near Lower Parel for this academic year.

Leadership Programs

Learning to Lead

Achievements

Sports : LTL girls won the Pankaj Jadhav Memorial Cup on 3rd May.

Academics : Shweta Nagaria scored 85.5% in her CBSE. She has achieved a truly amazing feat.

Other achievers are : Tauqeer (72% in FYJC, Arts); Priyanka (64% in FYJC Arts)

9^th Std:  Deepa (68% in CBSE); Azim (70%); Arif (75%)

8^th Std:  Eshwari (76% in CBSE); Alfiya (71%)

7^th Std:  Shubhangi (80% in 7th CBSE);; Ganesh and (73%); Nirmala (83%)

6^th Std:  Tabrez (77%); Ganeshri (75%); Shamina (73%) Ashwini (72%); Shraddha (70%)

The LTL team prepared for the upcoming retreat to Bangalore in the first week of June.

Social Leadership Program

SLP batch 5 has been recruited. We have a group of 16 leaders for the program now. This time around, we have leaders from Salaam Balaak and Saathi too.

All our leaders are interning in various organizations, ranging from Salaam Balaak, Satark Nagrik Sangathan, Asha Sadan, Dignity Foundation to the Akanksha SLP department. The internships are coming to an end and every intern group is planning a special day to wind up their month long internship period.

The SLP department went to Tina didi's farm house in Karjat for the department training. We spent a lot of time understanding the objectives of the program.

 We have designed a values packet for our level 5 and up centres. This packet has 10 values which we feel are important for our children and have given a range of various stories, movies, books etc pertaining to these values.

Social Work

The RTI meeting follow ups started with the Mankhurd and Worli communities. Members of Satark Nagrik Sangathan have started meeting with women groups this month. Together, SNS and the community have taken initiatives to resolve ration card related issues.

Social workers started pre-recruitment work, figured out the final numbers at each centre and recruitment strategies.

During community visits, SWs are ensuring that parents are getting their wards admission into schools.

The team has also been working on the plan for parents’ meetings through the year as well as  the new social workers induction and training.

Programs

Sports

Football and hockey has been the focus for the month of May 2008. It started off with the Pankaj Jadav Memorial football tournament. It was a well contested final between the Xavier’s Centre and SJ 1.  SJ 1 played superbly and won the finals by 3-1.  Alok Kanojia from SJ1 was adjusted the best player of the tournament.
15 kids from different centres were selected to participate in the Y.W.C.A. of Bombay Sports Summer Camp 2008 at the Back Garden in Colaba.

The Akanksha Sports Summer Camp, hockey and football practices keep the Akanksha students really busy this summer.

Our football team played against the American School of Bombay team. They won 1-0 and made many new friends. They also played a practice match with Salam Balak, winning 17 goals and a match against a team from Madanpura – Mumbai Central, winning 9-0. 

                                                          Akanksha Pune

Human Resources

We put up a stall at Mastek which was part of their social responsibility initiative.

We have a volunteer orientation for our new volunteers.

Beyond School

We conducted an aptitude test for our children in their 10th & 11th Standard. It was conducted by a psychologist at JRVGTI. There were also individual counseling sessions held with each child and his/her parents to discuss their various career options.

Our beyond school children were a part of the summer computer program. We had a basic course for 1 month & an advanced course for 2 weeks.

Social Leadership Program

Our children are doing their internships at various NGO’s like CYDA, Alochna, Indian Sponsorship Committee, KKPPS and at the Katraj Zoo.

Social Work

This month the helpers across centers helped the social workers to gather information about the formal school results of our children. The helpers went for a one-day picnic to Panchgani and Pratapgad.

Programs

Sports - On the 3rd of May we conducted a football match between Akanksha Pune and Mumbai Beyond School Teams. The match was held in Mumbai. Apart from this regular football training and sports classes are happening in the centres.

Art - This month we conducted a workshop on paper origami in two of our centres. Through this workshop kids came to learn to make different shapes and structures.

Dance– 20 children from St. Crispins Home were trained by the trainers from Shiamak Davar’s Victory Art Foundation. These kids performed in four shows with 1500 other kids from different groups.

Public Relations

On the 21st of May we had a meeting with WIPRO CARE, Hinjewadi, Pune. Their team is interested to collaborate with us with their CSR initiatives. We have proposed to have a core group of 100 employees from WIPRO CARE who would be regularly involved in our various programs as volunteers (weekday, weekend, and special events), mentors or individual sponsors. Also WIPRO is interested in reaching out to the less-privileged children in Aurangabad since they have started their new operations there and want Akanksha to join them in this endeavor.