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Aspire. Achieve. Be the Change. Akanksha Update August 2008 The Akanksha Foundation is a non-profit organization that educates less privileged children. Akanksha creates opportunities for over 3500 children through 63 Akanksha centers (37 in Mumbai and 26 in Pune) 2 KG centres & 4 schools. HAPPY TEACHERS’ DAY to all the very special didis and bhaiyas at Akanksha and for all you teachers out there… your contribution to the lives of children is extraordinary… where would we be without exceptional teachers who touched our lives… Akanksha has decided not to move forward with its plans to open The Abhyudaya Nagar school in Mumbai just had its first learning showcase, revealing the tremendous growth of its KG and 1st standard students on Friday, August 29th! Congratulations to the team and students of Abhyudaya Nagar! Akanksha Mumbai Education New teachers in centers: Three teachers started in their centers this month and have settled in well. They have created a lovely rapport with the kids and are putting in a lot of effort into planning and implementation. They have been receiving support from their co-teachers as well as their assistant education managers (AEMs) which has helped them plan and teach more effectively. The teachers meetings in August looked were focused on Excellent Lesson Plans and Be the Change Walk. The excellent lesson plan session was an opportunity for teachers to bring in a well researched and planned lesson for their level to share with their colleagues. This is an attempt to create a database of excellent plans that teachers can refer to. There were mid-month trainings for different levels that addressed planning, pre-writing skills, math concepts for L1-2, grammar concepts for L3 and comprehensions for L4 through The education department along with HR has also been working on a plan for teachers’ day to recognize and celebrate teachers – undoubtedly our biggest strength! This month we also had a really nice art carnival with Citigroup employees and some of our children at the KGM center. This was a wonderful opportunity for the kids as well as the Citigroup people to interact with each other. They had a blast and we hope there are many more such interactions in the future. Children from two of the Bandra centers were taken out for ‘My friend Ganesha’ by a team from B.A.G Films & Media Ltd. Once again this was a wonderful chance for the team and the kids to interact and the children really enjoyed the experience. We are still trying to find space in Colaba/Cuffe Parade for a morning center (Monday to Friday from 8:30 am to 11:00 am). Beyond School 41 students were awarded new scholarships to pursue junior college or their graduation for this academic year. 132 Beyond School students are enrolled and enjoying NIIT computer courses every Sunday all across the city! Akanksha now has 64 mentors in total, matching the need of almost every eligible child! Leadership programs Social Leadership Program (SLP) The module for this month is ‘Rights.’ We covered Rights in general, child rights, child labor, child sexual abuse, gender discrimination and Rights of women. Our leaders learnt a lot about their rights and have promised to spread the message to people they interact with. As part of our module on Rights, we also tried to cover sexuality and rights of transgender. We had Laxmi Narayan Tripathi who is the first transgender to represent the transgender community in the UN. She is also running an organization called Asthitva which works for the rights of Hijras. The session was very powerful and our leaders were absolutely amazed at her confidence and achievements. She spoke a lot about the rights and what we as individuals can do. It helped clear our mindsets towards people with different sexual preferences. Our leaders were extremely touched and realized that everybody is human and everyone should have the same rights. It was a first of its kind session in SLP and it was very powerful. On the occasion of Independence Day SLP designed 4 different projects – a street play in Mankhurd about our dependence on others to even keep our surroundings clean, a competition to see who could collect the most garbage at Borivali National Park!, spending time with senior citizens through fun activities and the be the change walk for SLP leaders. Teach The team visited Avehi and Abacus for material and training materials required for empowerment and mini-empowerment programs. At the Stanislaus centre Rotary Club sponsored the friendship day celebration. An eye camp was organized for children along with their parents at The scholarship process for college and other course admissions is over and to date we have disbursed over Rs 1.7 lakhs to our students and a further Rs 30,000 will be paid as second installments up to December. We have received a donation to cover this full amount which helps our students to persue further education that would otherwise be difficult for their families to financially manage. We are very grateful to our charity partners The Akanksha Fund and KINOE who each year are raising new donations for us, this year The Akanksha Fund is assisting us by funding our school growth project and 6 centres and KINOE is also sponsoring 6 centres and part of our medical expenses incurred on behalf of the children. The entries for the Mumbai Marathon January 2009 are closed and the only available forms are through the corporate challenge whereby a company can register a team of 30 runners. Akanksha also has a few numbers which are blocked as part of the Akanksha group however due to the unprecedented demand for them we would request that anyone who wishes to run on our behalf attempts to raise a minimum amount of Rs5000 in pledges. Centre Sponsorship: Thank you to Mr Naresh Naik for a donation towards the sponsorship of the JJ Mankhurd centre. We would also like to thank Novartis for renewing sponsorship of the Yuvati Sharan centre for academic year 2008-09. Akanksha Pune Education The highlight of the month was the Literary Fest, which was on the 30th of August. The Literary fest was based on the theme, ‘Open books, open minds’. The fest was aimed at getting the children passionate about reading and opening their minds to the wonderful world of books. It started off with a performance by Akanksha teachers where a schoolgirl meets a bookworm and discovers the fascinating world of books. The highlight of the event was, ‘Author’s chair’ where the young enthusiastic writers from Akanksha shared their original stories, essays, poems and write-ups. The young writers flaunted their English language skills in the poetry writing session where they wrote poetry of different styles like Cinquain, Diamante, Verb poem and Acrostic with aplomb. Children also presented scenes from their Sonali Adkar, a professional storyteller did an engaging classic tale about farm animals that were thrown out by their masters because they were old, to bring alive the value of respect for all and the power of unity. The fest culminated with a book release of the original poems written by the children and a love for reading and writing amongst the children. Beyond School Individuals from Aviva conducted a 2-day workshop for some of our SLP and Beyond school children. It was a good learning experience for the children as it gave them an opportunity to discover and analyze their strengths and focus on ways to achieve their goals. They were introduced to some techniques of meditation and body sensing. They learnt about the power of dreams, importance of understanding ones fears along with concrete steps on how to overcome them. The children also learnt about appreciative enquiry and its importance. Social Work The theme for the parents meeting at old centres was, “ Understanding values and why we teach values at Akanksha”. At the new centre parent meeting the topic of discussion was, “Importance of Nutrition”. This was demonstrated by serving the parents nutritious ‘Bhel’ during the meeting. Human Resources The HR department in collaboration with the Education department conducted an eight day induction program for the new teachers and staff from 5th to14th August. We made presentations at Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies, Symbiosis Institute of International Business to solicit volunteers. We are re looking at our recruitment process with the help of some senior managers from Aviva. Finance Akanksha Pune would like to extend a very special thank you to Mohit Mehta, a teacher in the We would like to acknowledge Ms Amani Jambhekar who volunteered with us and donated 300 storybooks from the Cambridge Press. A big thank you to Madhavi for donating stationary for our centres. Social Leadership Program SLP2 children started their module on child rights this month. Individuals from an organization called Muskaan, which works, in the area of Child Sexual Abuse, took 2 sessions with our children. On the occasion of Independence Day, sessions were conducted around the theme with the SLP children. We did a project on child rights/ child labour where the SLP children conducted a survey in their community to learn and understand the level of awareness amongst other children about child rights and child labour laws. They also researched about the number of children who have dropped out of school and are working instead. The SLP I batch commenced their first project. They have taken up the initiative to teach a group of 30 boys from the age group of 5-16years in an ashram in Wadgaonsheri. Their objective at the end of the project is to ensure that the children have basic communication and written skills in English. They teach at the Ashram every Sunday for 4 hours. As part of the project they are also taking football lessons for these children. They are very motivated and excited about this project and they wish that they would be able to touch the lives of these children and learn a lot from them as well. Public Relations A team from Cummins Sales and Services visited the Aundh centre on 6th August to interact with the kids and experience how a centre runs. Students from ICFAI arranged a special event at St Crispin’s I where they played games with the children, conducted a quiz, a talent competition and gave away prizes to the winners. ICFAI also donated stationery and big maps of We made presentations at Aviva, TCS, Tech Mahindra, KPIT Cummins and Suzlon Energy Ltd Corporate to solicit volunteers for our centres and other programs. A product stall was put up in the Cognizant premises on 14th August. DONATE Akanksha is a charitable organisation which relies on donations for its day to day operations. We spend approximately Rs 5500 per child annually in our Akanksha centres and we have over 3000 children in our programme. We also have other programmes such as sports, arts, social leadership group, nutrition and medical supplements, and grants for further education, which need to be funded on an ongoing basis. No matter how much the amount you consider donating, it is helpful to us in order to reach more children and provide them with a valuable education. Cheques can be sent to our offices in Mumbai and Pune and you can contact our funding team through website@akanksha.org for further information. Donations in kind are also helpful to us and we are currently in need of notebooks, pencils and other stationary items for our centres, storage cupboards and CD players for centres that we recently opened. We also require cleaning materials such as phenyl and dusters for our centres and office. Akanksha is a registered Society and donations made are covered under s 80G I.T. Act 1961. Akanksha is also registered under the FCRA Act and is eligible for foreign donations through the following links www.kinoe.org or www.justgiving.com/kinoe/donate and akankshafund@msn.com or http://www.nycharities.org/donate/c_donate.asp?CharityCode=1461 Mumbai : The Akanksha Foundation, Mumbai 400 033. Telefax: 23700253 Tel: 23729880 Pune: The Akanksha Foundation, Thermax Ltd, Thermax House, 14 Mumbai – Wakdewadi, Pune 411 003, Ph: 020-25540007/08 adminpune@akanksha.org |
