Akanksha Update January 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).

 Human Resources

Akanksha is at all Major Campuses in Mumbai and Pune as we are looking for smart youngsters who believe strongly that they make a difference. We are looking for motivated young people who are willing to be part of the solution to the Primary Education Challenge in India.

Walk in for interviews:

Bombay: 19th & 20th Feb between 9.30am and 3.30pm 

Pune: 14th, 15th & 16th Feb between 9.30am and 3.30pm 

Akanksha Mumbai

Education

Akanksha opened its 32nd center in Mumbai - off Linking Road, Santacruz.

The Teachers Meetings this time focused on enhancing reading ability amongst our kids - there is now a renewed sense of urgency and excitement around getting our children read more and read better across levels.

Republic Day was celebrated at centers with lessons centered around Authority and Accountability. Children learnt some basic principles about the way our country is governed.

Beyond School

‘Didi I passed college and got a job even and after marriage, I opted for just one child. It felt so good. Can it really happen?’ Sana, Mah 2.

We say it can happen Sana. We will help you make it real.

Careers: The Life Game designed for the Year 1 students was a grand success with the Beyond School kids. This game stresses on the importance of taking the right decisions at the crucial junctures of life, their impact and various aspects of life in a nutshell. The game was mainly to convey the relation between career choices and life in its totality. The kids enjoyed it thoroughly and had a good time.

Computers The 3 months computer refresher course arranged for the older kids in collaboration with Deloitte has come to an end. For receiving their certificate they have to appear for a theoretical as well as a practical exam. They will be evaluated on the basis of their attendance and marks scored in the exam.

The School Project

Supari Tank School

The std 1 team won the gold medal at Akanksha sports day in the military obstacle race.

Field trips to the Nehru planetarium and Nehru science center was organized to tie in with themes that they were studying about in class.

Our Lady of Dolours

We have done classroom observations followed by several teacher discussions in order to understand the needs of the school and areas where we can be useful.

We conducted classroom management workshops over 3 days with the teachers. We have also conducted parent workshops for Jr. KG and Sr. KG. since the response was positive, we will be doing one for parents of first graders on the 5th of February.

We are initiating a library and reading project.

Finance

Thank you to all the people who ran on our behalf in the marathon and the corporate teams and employees from DHL, Thermax, Novartis, IDFC, Highlight Films, Citigroup, Castrol, Mastek & Maersk.

 A special thank you to Amit and Archana Chandra for running in the Dream Team and Mohit Aggarwal for running the full marathon and apologies for any names we have missed since we don't yet have details of all those who have raised pledges for us.

 Our seven Akanksha boys did good timings between 2 to 2 and half hours and DHL is planning a special prize for them all.

As always the marathon was a huge success and we hope to see many more participants supporting us next year and helping us to raise funds to cover the increasing numbers of children in our programme.

We would like to also thank the Finton House School in London who are doing a special project on India and will be raising funds towards one of our centres this year with the assistance of KINOE.

Also a special mention and congratulations to Michaela and Kishore Anchan and Anjali da Victoria Loba & Aravind Moorthy on their respective marriages. Both couples generously requested their wedding guests to make a contribution to Akanksha in lieu of gifts. This is truly a wonderful contribution to us on their part.

Social Work

The Parents Meetings for the month of January were based on the concept of Empowering Women. This was arrived at after an analysis of the needs expressed by mothers in or communities - they voiced gaps in their understanding about the employment opportunities available to them, their role as parents and their rights and responsibilities. The meetings this month set the tone for the rest of the term - which will focus on our mothers - and how they can help themselves in order to better help their children.

2 of our centers in Mumbai recorded 100% Parents Meetings Attendance.

The Leadership Program

Learning to Lead

LTL3 Recruitment assessments were given to the kids who are in the 5^th and the 6^th standards. There will be IQ test in Feb and final interviews in the 1^st week of March.

LTL2 has started an empowerment based module this month and the focus has been on self awareness.

LTL1 focused on World War II and HIV AIDS this month. In World War I, some case studies and leaders during WWII were discussed especially the life history of Hitler. They watched ‘Schindler’s list’ and ‘Life is Beautiful’ movies as part of the theme.

The HIV AIDS module was an eye opener. It cleared some myths and answered a lot of their questions. A presentation was also made by a team from Glaxo. The Students have painted tiles with symbols and messages to be conveyed in the community. These tiles will be cemented in the community once permission has been received.

Social Leadership Program

‘I didn’t know that I could be the reason for a smile on a stranger’s face. I saw that today and I felt so humbled and peaceful that I can do this all the time.’ Yogesh

The SLP and ATF candidates led the Change Walk on 28^th Jan with 120 older students. Each had experiences that they could not stop talking about.

The SLP students have also been through a very informative and insightful module on communal harmony. ‘Schindler’s list’ touched them deeply.

The Traineeship Program

We will be recruiting trainees for the next year. The Akanksha graduates and the kids graduating will be eligible to apply.  A presentation will be made to the Alumni and the Beyond School students on traineeship.

Akanksha Teacher Fellowship

During January, ATF fellows began teaching in centers three times a week. Now they have more opportunities to implement all of the ideas and activities they've been learning in class. They're also getting very helpful feedback from their mentor teachers in planning, teaching, and reflecting on their lessons.
 

The Art Project

Its been a month of discovery. The Art students who’d worked so hard for the X’mas exhibition got to watch ‘Happy Feet’ and learn a bit about animation. Bottom line is that we want to know more about it and are going to try and bring in animators to help do that.

Art Design class went to the JJ School of Arts Exhibition of Final projects and we were astounded by what we saw. Sheer hard work mixed with creativity can be a heady combination to witness. We left feeling that we do so much more than we were. The Kala Ghoda Festival too was a delight for the students to go and visit. We loved the painted furniture by Art Quest because it was so close to what we do. Picked up a lot of tips from artists.

The Akanksha stall at the Festival is doing well.

Akanksha Pune

One of our small victories this month took place when Rohit from our level 8 Wakedawadi center told his teacher that once he has a job, he would like to buy a place and donate a room to Akanksha to run a center, because he thinks Akanksha is important. ?

Education

January has been an eventful month for the Education department in Pune! Everyone came back from the holidays ready to prepare their students for the upcoming assessments. There has thus been a focus across the centers of ensuring that all students are learning (and mastering) the year end objectives.

We opened our 23^rd Pune center this month! Crispin’s 3 is our third center at St Crispin’s home. We have two level 1 classes, one which will complete the level 1 curriculum in 3 months and the other in 6 months, as these are older students. The first two weeks of this center have reaffirmed our beliefs that it is possible to motivate and push students to achieve at a fast pace.

The teachers' meeting focused on classroom management strategies. The teachers have created new rules and consequences posters, which they are working on following consistently. They are also working on having more assertive reactions to specific classroom misbehaviour as well as establishing and following procedures for classroom routines.

At the teachers' training, the teachers brainstormed effective outings for their classes. They worked in small groups to plan pre-lessons and follow-up activities. They also took time to examine the materials in the resource center in order to find resources and create lessons which will help them with the specific learning needs at their centers.

The education department has been working together with Bombay to ensure clear, progressive assessments which accurately measure students' progress. These assessments will hopefully serve as a blue print for future years to ensure consistency in the results across all centers.

Together with the education department in Bombay, we are in the process of putting together a new teachers' training program for five weeks in May-June. The program will serve as an intensive induction for new Akanksha teachers, many of whom we are recruiting from D.Ed colleges. The first week will be a residential retreat, followed by a one week educational convention, which will include orientation for all returning Akanksha teachers. The training institute will conclude with three weeks of trainings and center observations.

We have two new American volunteers who will be here until the end of April. Rikki is one of our teachers at the new Crispins 3 center and is also working on ‘Sunshine around the world’ and other special programs. Shyla is teaching our Zensar afternoon center and is contributing to the running and operations of our teacher training institute coming up this summer. Both Rikki and Shyla are already contributing a lot to their centers and we look forward to having them with us for the next few months!

Social Work

January was the month for evening parent meetings. The topic was Tuberculosis in children. We presented this to the parents in the form of a role play. The Tuberculosis Department from the local Government hospital supported us by providing informative posters. Some of the members from this department also attended our first meeting.

Programs

23^rd of this month was really special for our older kids and the Pune team. About 120 children from Kanvenagar (m), Kothrud (m), St Crispins 2 and Wakadewadi centres had an opportunity to meet Mallika Sarabai and her team. The kids were really excited to meet her and showered questions to know a little more about her and the kind of work she does. They also shared about the different service projects they did at Akanksha.

The program ended with a performance put up by her team and the kids were very excited to see something which was so easy to understand yet had a deep meaning within it.

The Taj Blue Diamond had arranged a special New Year’s party for 60 kids from our Bophkel (FM1) centre. The kids were greeted by the staff at Blue Diamond. The kids were all charged up when they played musical chair. Our kids then had fun watching a magic show and were happy to get a little Mickey mouse tattoo on their hands. The day ended with the kids enjoying a great Lunch and taking home gifts. 

Human Resources

A series of presentations across B. Ed, D. Ed, Graduate level colleges are being organized as part of the campaign to recruit teachers for the next year. About a hundred students have already signed up through this recruitment process. Persons interested in joining us as teachers for the next academic year can contact : 020- 2582 1000/ 2582 1001.

We also have vacancies for the position of Social Workers.

Akanksha Needs

Akanksha is looking for Bus Contractors / Transporters to take children from the community to centres. Please contact Santosh for details.

Akanksha is also in need of Computers with a minimum requirement of Pentium III processor, 128 MB RAM & 20 GB harddisk.

Mumbai: The Akanksha Foundation, Voltas House ‘C’, T.B. Kadam Marg, Chinchpokli,

Mumbai 400 033. Telefax: 23700253 Tel: 23729880

admin@akanksha.org

Pune: The Akanksha Foundation, 102, HEMOPAL, Next to Joshi Wadawala, Wakadewadi, Bombay Pune Road, Pune 411 005. Tel: 020- 25821000 and 25821001

akanksha_pune@vsnl.net

Visit us at www.akanksha.org