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| Home >> Newsletters of NGOs >> Akanksha Foundation, Mumbai - Educates Children from Slums |   Email this Page |
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Akanksha Update February 2007 The Akanksha Foundation is a non-profit organization that educates less privileged children from slum areas. Over the past 16 years, Akanksha has managed to create opportunities for over 2600 children who study in 55 Akanksha centres (32 in Mumbai and 23 in Pune) and another 1000 children through the School Project (3 schools in Mumbai and 5 in Pune). Akanksha Mumbai Education We have spent the month gearing up for assessments which will take place March 12-23rd. We are really excited about all the progress students have been making in centers. Teachers have submitted their end of the year project proposals - a celebration of the successes of our students and our teachers.This is really a chance to highlight all the things which our centers are doing. Teacher Meeting: We have split the teachers into two groups: level 1-2 and levels 3 and up. This has reduced the number of teachers at each meeting, allowed the presenters to give the teachers level specific information, and all teachers to get their questions answers. It has really been going well. We appreciate Though we are recruiting new teachers, we still have many vacancies. There are a couple centers where learning has really been effected because we have not been able to have stable teachers. We hope that in the next couple of weeks we find teachers for these centers.
Nicolas Piramal has agreed to join the Akanksha mentor program. We are thrilled to invite them into the Akanksha team of didis and bhaiyas. The career counseling and aptitude testing reports of the Year 1 Career students have been prepared and handed over. We are sure this will help the students as well as the teachers. This year, we have a large number of students appearing for their 10th and 12th standard exams. As a way of supporting them, we organized a workshop on ‘Exam tips and Stress Management’. The School Project The year end project presentation showcased what the students were learning in each standard. It was a medley of role plays, songs, skits and dances. It really also showcased how difficult it is to work with such a large group of students and how much progress the team has managed to make in the last year. Watching fourth standard students explain the constitution through a rap song was absolutely incredible. Many parents and local supporters attended the function and celebrated the achievement of the children. Our Lady of Dolours We have continued our parents’ interaction sessions with the Std 1 parents this month. We have also started a library for the primary school and a literature circle for the Std 4 children.
We did 3 recruitment advertisements last month in the Times of India, Mid-Day and Mumbai Mirror. We selected 3 candidates and 8 are yet to be met for Final Interviews. The Volunteer Orientation is on the 24th of March. The orientation helps new volunteers understand Akanksha and the students that they work with. It also helps them cope with problems that they are likely to face. Summer Camp begins on the 2nd of May. Summer camp is special because it is a completely volunteer led initiative. Please do let us know if anybody can help us with ideas/ resource people. We are hoping to make this a fun and exciting summer for our kids with lots of drama, song, dance, art and sports! We also require committed volunteers for 3 weeks, please spread the word. Its a great way for all to spend their summer constructively!!! Social Work The Parents’ Meetings in February dealt with the topic of 'Safe motherhood and pregnancy'. These were the first among our series of meetings on 'Women and Family empowerment'. Good response was generated, and post meeting, many mothers had queries regarding various health issues. They enjoyed the interest-building activity wherein they had to colour a set of 5 flashcards (on pregnancy). Attendance across centres was great. The not so great news is that our PD'Mello and Shastri Nagar communities have to relocate to Mankhurd anytime now. Both these communites are getting demolished for the 'Road widening project'. We have spoken with policy makers to defer the demolitions till The Leadership Program Learning to Lead Chandrakant Kothawale was nominated for the post of Headboy. He has been selected as the Social Service Leader of his school, The tenth standard students are preparing for their board exams. They have been writing test papers. Even 9th standard kids are mainly focusing academics and test papers. Lopa, has joined the LTL team and is focusing on the academic testing and tracking of both the LTL1 and LTL2 students. LTL2 : They have completed the module on self awareness and are working on the application. In the Units test, Ganesh has got 90%, Arif has got 75% and Jamal has got 70%. LTL fresh recruitment process will be completed next week. LTL will be going for the Summer Leadership retreat from 14th April – 16th April. The summer sessions will run from 17th April to 11th May. Social Leadership Program SLP3 leaders - Taqueer, Arun, Ramesh and Shirajul went to Karjat to see the tribal village that they will be adopting for their summer internship in May. They interacted with the youth of that village to figure out what they are expecting, They will be taking up the community hall and make it usable. They have created a detailed plan on what they will be doing there and all the materials they will need. SLP leaders went through a module on Disability Rights. This was conducted by the Ummeed team and it was an extremely knowledgable experience. The leaders learnt about how they can they can help disabled people. The Traineeship Program A presentation was made to the alumni for recruiting trainees for next year beginning May 1. The presentation will also be made to beyond school centers next week. We are also throwing open this program to non-Akanksha candidates. The requirements are 18 years of age, SSC pass, good English speaking skills & willing to work 18 hours a week Positions are available in Akanksha Teacher Fellowship On February 16th, a group of ATF volunteers, led by English teachers Jill and Marie, participated in a service project with NANGO (Not Another NGO), Shabnam (artistic tile experts) and the Slum Rehabilitation Society in Jogeshwari. The ATF team had fun painting tiles with over 230 kids! Once finished, the tiles will be hung in 27 stairwells in buildings across the city, inspiring residents to keep them clean and beautiful. Art Art Venture, a organization based in The Akanksha Art workshops were one of the four finalists at the SP Jain Marketing Impact Awards 2007. This was an opportunity that helped us reach many new people who were very drawn to what Akanksha was doing and also reinforced how much better we need to track impact even in programs like art. Akanksha Pune Education Teachers’ Meeting focused on teaching kids at different levels how to write and check/edit their own writing. The teachers were also exposed to different writing prompts and ideas for creative writing. The teachers were given a demonstration of how good writers think and organize their ideas and check for mistakes in their writing. The teachers also practised these skills and tried grading writing using the different components. The teachers also understood the importance of creating lessons with clear objectives and looked through different statements to explore whether or not they could be classified as clear objectives. At the Teachers’ training, teachers read part of an article titled “what’s wrong with our teaching” that appeared in India Today and debated on what truly differentiates the teaching style and methodology at Akanksha from the regular school and how confident they feel about Akanksha kids being able to perform well on thinking assessments. The teachers re looked at the different components of an effective lesson plan and worked in detail on the interest and apply component of the lessons. Teaching aids exhibition: The teachers had fun putting up an exhibition of their innovative teaching aids. The teachers were in small groups and had themes that defined their stalls. Some of the new ideas dealt with math strategies, sight word, phonic and blend word teaching ideas, theme related learning and different strategies for learning grammar. The teachers went to visit different stalls and noted down the ideas that appealed to them the most or the ones they thought they would be able to use in their centres. The staff too put up a stall with their ideas on innovative teaching aids. The teachers got to learn from each other and left feeling richer in ideas. Older kids’ special event: The older kids from 6 different centres FM1, FM2, Sunshine, Wakdewadi, KN1 and KN2 participated in a special learning event that got them to interact with each other and pool in their learning. The kids played different games like voice your opinion, building word maze, spellathon, making puppets of their didis and bhaiyas using waste material, what’s the good word and letter box. The kids had a lot of fun and displayed huge amounts of energy, learning and creativity. Muskaan centre formal opening: The three month old Muskaan centre had its formal opening on the 22nd. Many representatives from the centre sponsor National Grid were present along with our other sponsors Zensar and Anu Aga. It was a wonderful day as kids sang songs, played Bingo and other games and participated in the class assembly to showcase their learning and their language skills. The sponsors presented each kid with a personalized school bag, pencils and cap. Celebrating small victories: The teachers individually prepared a report card of the Pune centres and highlighted the small victories that we have achieved through the years. Service Project: About 40 kids from our Wakdewadi centre along with their didis and bhaiyas spent a weekend this month cutting grass and cleaning up some parts of the premises of a convent that had requested for help in doing so. The kids worked with all their energy and the place was transformed by the time they were ready to go. It was a long and tiring day and yet it was a fulfilling experience as kids exhibited the qualities of hardwork, team work, sharing and caring. The sisters at the convent were very cooperative and served our kids tea and jalebis and encouraged our kids to put in their best. Assessments: It is time again for formal assessments across centres and this month was spent preparing assessments for all the different levels that could be used as effective tools for measuring the learning of the kids. A small victory this month was when Shivdutta, a level 3 kid from our Kothrud M centre took time at home preparing his own teaching aids for teaching blends that he kept showing as the teacher was teaching in class.:) Social Work The topic for this month’s parents’ meeting was Domestic problems, its impact on the child and the role the mother can play. The parents were given situations that some of our kids were facing and they had to come up with applicable solutions. At the end we told them what solutions were used to overcome such problems by similar parents. The discussion at some of the meetings was interesting because some mothers asked why the stress only on the mother and not the father and why do we not question the fathers as much about their role in bringing up the children. Mumbai: The Akanksha Foundation, Mumbai 400 033. Telefax: 23700253 Tel: 23729880 Pune: The Akanksha Foundation, 102, HEMOPAL, Next to Joshi Wadawala, Wakadewadi, Bombay Pune Road, Pune 411 005. Tel: 020- 25821000 and 25821001 Visit us at http://www.akanksha.org/ |
