Reports on Champion rural primary education in Mulshi, India

Project Report | Nov 1, 2019
Lights of Happiness and Hope

By Manasi Nafde | Head of Community Partnership and Outreach

Diwali or Deepawali is the Hindu festival of lights, typically lasting five days. One of the most popular festivals of Hinduism, Diwali symbolises the spiritual "victory of light over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance"

In the lead-up to Diwali, celebrants will prepare by cleaning, renovating, and decorating their homes and workplaces. During the climax, revellers adorn themselves in their finest clothes, illuminate the interior and exterior of their homes with Diyas (oil lamps or candles), offer puja to the goddess of prosperity and wealth, light fireworks, and partake in family feasts, where mithai (Sweets) and gifts are shared. Diwali is also a major cultural event for the Hindu and Jain diaspora from the Indian subcontinent.

In the month of October, students from Khelghar schools celebrated Diwali by painting earthen lamps. The teachers organized various activities like the discussion around the importance of the festival with respect to the social gathering, harvest, mythology, food and other festivities.

The students came together to talk about the ill-effects due to bursting firecrackers and using plastic lamps. The students had set up a stall to sell the colourfully painted diyas at various locations to spread awareness and raise funds to build a garden at their school.

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Sep 5, 2019
Loving our surrounding!

By Manasi Nafde | Head of Akshara

Hello,

With your generous support to Khelghar, our students have been benefitting from various learning and fun activities. The students are enjoying the start of their school and are learning more about their surrounding through simple but effective activities

Here are some of the updates from the project before the summer break started:

- In the month of June and July, the students were welcomed to the new grades. To help these students, Akshara facilitators and the teachers in the Government Primary Schools in Mulshi valley, we organized activities on teaching them more about plants, their types and the crops cultivated in Mulshi Valley. We designed and implemented a small project with students on tree plantation and asked them to monitor the growth in the rainy season and record their observations. Mulshi valley was flooded in the month of July due to overflowing of the river near the villages, Mula. Yet it was so encouraging to see all the students taking care of the plants and the check dams they constructed around the school.

- Akshara's connection with MUWCI (UWC Mahindra College) has been very special. The students in the villages feel inspired by the college and are always excited to visit the campus and interact with MUWCI students. MUWCI students have been engaging with our students and even with the schools in the villages for various activities. August is a festive month, a lot of local Hindu festivals are celebrated in Mulshi Valley, one such great festival is Ganesh Utsav; the festival lasts for the ten days and after that the idol is carried in a public procession with music and group chanting and immersed in a nearby body of water such as a river or sea. Our students from Akshara made eco-friendly idols of Lord Ganesha which gave a very strong message to the villagers about avoiding the use of PoP, toxic colours and plastic and keeping the rivers pollution-free.

All these special events and programs enrich our program and help us in engaging more deeply with the students, their teachers and parents, and the rural community at large. All this is made possible by your kind and generous support!

We thank you for all you have done for educating the rural children of India, and we look forward for your continued support!

Thanks & Best Regards,

Manasi on behalf of Akshara team

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Jun 7, 2019
Sharing updates from schools in Mulshi Valley

By Saumya Arora | Project Manager

Hello,

With your generous support to Khelghar, our students have been benefitting from various learning and fun activities. The students are enjoying their summer vacation currently and will be back in schools in June after this period of rejuvenation.

Here are some of the updates from the project before the summer break started:

- In the month of April, the students had their Annual Examination. To help these students, Akshara facilitators and the teachers in the Government Primary Schools in Mulshi valley, we organized some workshops on evaluation techniques. We were also joined by our knowledge partner- Gram Mangal to conduct some demonstration sessions about differential learning methods.

- Akshara's connection with MUWCI (UWC Mahindra College) has been very special. The students in the villages feel inspired by the college and are always excited to visit the campus and interact with MUWCI students. MUWCI students have been engaging with our students and even with the schools in the villages for various activities. We organized a special event for our primary students under Khelghar program in MUWCI campus- called the 'Tiny Tales', wherein these young story tellers expressed their creativity and imagination by telling various stories.

- Another of our knowledge partner organizations, Aalochana, organized a workshop for our school teachers about developing the quality of inquisitiveness and the title of the workshop was ‘Ask Why?’. The content was inclusive of social structure, misconceptions and superstitions in the society and it saw great participation and enthusiasm of teachers.

All these special events and programs enrich our program and help us in engaging more deeply with the students, their teachers and parents, and the rural community at large. All this is made possible by your kind and generous support!

We thank you for all you have done for educating the rural children of India, and we look forward for your continued support!

Thanks & Best Regards,

Saumya on behalf of Akshara team