Empowering 50 HIV+ kids in India through education

    This quarter was reflective of annual hard-work, commitment, and the overall efforts the children that they had invested on their educational aspect as this quarter covered all types of school related assignments, submissions, important tasks, and finally annual examinations and also their outcomes/results. Academically these three months were of special importance to all of us, as five of our children had appeared for their SSC final examination, standing on their edge of transformation and hoping for the best to happen in the future. They did not break our trust when the results for the SSC examinations were declared. All our children passed with satisfactory grades in their SSC examination, and now they are going through the life deciding process of online admissions for their post matric education. Looking at the background these children come from, it is highly commendable that these children are able to get through the examination. We are also sending eight of our children to the Tata apprenticeship program, the process of which have already started. Tata Motors is providing with all necessary support to enroll our children for the ITI program. To get selected for this prestigious training, and respectable job opportunities on successful completion of the training, our children will have to crack the entrance examination, group discussion, and personal interview round as designed by the company in an environment of close competition and challenges posed by the fellow applicants. The decision of including maximum number of applicants for this apprenticeship program has been taken as we want to give them a glance of present competition level and standard that we have to maintain if we want to be in the race of descent opportunities and also give them a chance to self-analyze where they exactly stand, and what they need to improve.

   Sandip, our child who appeared for the first year final examination for diploma in Computer Engineering course from Eklavya Polytechniqe Institute, cleared all the subjects with total of 48% and successfully took admission for the second year. Two of our students who were appeared for FYJC (11^th standard) final examination also cleared all their subjects with satisfactory grades even after facing tougher and technical subjects like Economics for the first time in English. Among them, Kajal scored 57%, whereas Sudarshan scored 47% marks. Arati, who had appeared for her HSC examination for the second attempt, also cleared her all subjects with more than satisfactory grades and now she has plans to complete her graduation in arts stream by taking sociology as a specialized subject. She has set an ambition of becoming professional social worker and wants to join and be a part of this noble work of Manavya after completion of her post-graduation. Pankaj, who had appeared for his final examination of foundation course in Government Diploma in fine arts from Abhinav Kala Vidyalay Pashan, also succeeded in completing first year smoothly, and is now plans to take admission for his elementary course in commercial and advertising. Hobby training has become an indispensable part and in fact a backbone of most of our initiatives, programs, and activities that are taken in the direction of personality development of our children. We are not limiting our work only by appreciating the different skills and artistic qualities in these children, but also going beyond that and trying our best and utilizing our networking with donors as well as well-wishers to train our children with a professional perspective in these skills. For eg, we sent four of our girls who had completed their SSC examinations, to Mrs. Paradkar a professional expert in manufacturing  various decorative/artistic materials which is then supplied for household use for the festivals like ’Ganpati celebrations’. Our girls were provided systematic training and practical demonstrations regarding the various techniques and skills of producing these decorative materials such as pieces of wooden temples, thermacol work, how to make various designing shapes such as butterflies, flowers etc. which can be then creatively used for home decoration. One of our girls Sapna, who is interested in making her career in cooking, has been enrolled to SNDT for professional course in bakery and confectionary which is a course of 2 year duration.   

    Few of our girls also received wedding order from one family, which is connected to Manavya for many years, and which was impressed by their skills in making quilling frames. This was perhaps a highlighting achievement, as our children’s work being appreciated and utilized by our donors and well-wishers, on such a special occasion in their life. As it was noted that many of our girls are taking keen interest in quilling paper art, we forwarded one move further and sent 3 of our girls to Mrs. Rajashri a renowned and well-known expert in this field, for one day workshop in quilling improvement and advanced training in making quilling dolls and frames. Apart from quilling, we have also started advanced training in Karate, wherein the children are being taught to play karate with bamboo sticks and perform various structures such as pyramid which needs a lot of coordination and balancing skills within the performing artists. In field of music, our music teachers have gone deeper into this art after confirming equal response, increasing maturity and hard work in form of regular practice from their little singers, and they have started giving basic lessons in classical singing/ music to few selected children.

Special Events/ Activities in Gokul

    In this period of three months, our residential home Gokul became the center of numerous activities and events as it was the period of vacations and free time for all our children. Some of these activities were carried out by the outside guests, and volunteers from various companies, whereas rests of them were organized by our staff for personality development of the children. A unique initiative was taken in order to establish a reading culture in Manavya and to cultivate, nurture and sustain the reading habits in our children systematically, and in this direction we organized a workshop of 4 days on reading skills taken by the volunteers from ‘Manthan Educational Initiative’. This workshop was organized with a view to assess current reading capabilities in our children and to make a plan of action on each child which will be based on his reading potentials. This workshop really helped in utilizing our current resources related to literature, for the good of our children. Apart from this, a science related workshop was organized in the premise of Gokul, from the volunteers of Gyansetu group, who explained and simplified various complex scientific concepts such as centrifugal force, capillary action etc. for all our children through activity packed schedule of two days. This workshop really helped our children to unfold various science related concepts, through the method of ‘fun and learn’.   

    This quarter was really special and of utmost importance from the organizational point of view. Our kitchen renovation project jointly taken up by Tata Motors and Jaguar Land Rover Pvt Ltd, has reached to its final stage and it will be ready to operate soon, in few days. Apart from this, a full separation of boys and girls dormitories came into effect, and all boys were shifted to another building.  A special study room, fully equipped with study tables and lamps was carved out in the boy’s dormitory especially for the 10^th and above children, in order to give them a motivation for self-study. Manavya celebrated its 18^th foundation day, on 21^st June, in Anand lawns, Bhugaon in the auspicious presence of all our donors, and well-wishers and Mr. Hari Narake, famous writer as chief guest of the event. During this program our children presented newly acquired skills and talents through various dance, drama, and musical performances along with a special program based on adventurous Karate demonstrations which provided a glance to all our donors about improving physical strength of our children. In month of May, Many CSR activities were organized in Gokul which provided a treat of healthy recreation as well as something creative to our children who were not gone to their homes for the vacations. Aviva UK team organized a lunch party for all our children in which a lunch of Pavbhaji and Aamas was served to them made by the joint efforts of our housemothers as well as company employees. Team of 20 employees from Tata consultancy services (TCS), Hinjewadi organized art workshop for our children wherein a theme based drawing competition was arranged for our children. Aparajita foundation, a similar non-profit organization like Manavya dedicated to the goal of female education, decided to celebrate the most special occasion in their life that is first foundation day of their organization with our kids, and to share their happiness, they arranged a full day program in Gokul, in which they organized numerous fun time activities like Zumba dancing, origami by inviting facilitators/experts in the concerned fields. Apart from our own foundation day, Shiv Sena party also celebrated its foundation day with our kids and distributed sweets and toys to our children. We had arranged two days picnic to Alibaug, as most of our children had never gone ever to any sea beach in their lifetime, to give them a pleasurable change from their molded routine/schedule. Children also visited famous Birla temple, Kashid beach, Nagaon beach, and Karmarkar sculpture museum in Saswane, and spent most of their time in bathing and enjoying in the sea water. 

We are providing short one line information and review of those events/activities in which our children took part in this quarter –

1)      Visit organized by the students of J.K. Bhojvani School in Pune Camp area, and organization of painting                        workshop, as well as hand ball competition between their and our team.

2)      A visit to a five star Hotel, ‘Novotel’ in Pune.

3)      Cake making workshop for the group of adolescent girls.

4)      Organization of ‘Science Meet’, an exhibition of various science models conducted by the team of youngsters from          ‘Dipstambh’ NGO in Sadashiv Peth, Pune. 

5)      A visit organized by Tata Motors ‘Tech Literature Cell’ to Gokul.

6)      A visit of students from ‘Chanakya Mandal Parivar’ to Gokul and quality time spent with our children along with               organization of sports competition for our children, demonstrations of self-defense tactics for girls and lecture on             orientation about various competitive civil services examination and preparation that is required to appear for such           examination, future career prospects and opportunities etc. 

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