Put the power in the learner's hands

LOVING WHAT YOU DO IS THE FIRST STEP.

SECOND IS OUR PROVEN PROCESS.

ACCEPTANCE BEFORE CHANGE

Despite years spent in the classroom, more than half of grade Six children cannot read a simple paragraph at the grade 2 level. Yet, after only few sessions of instruction in reading activity, almost 80% of participants become readers, in that they are able to read simple stories.

Every session at Sahaya we start with a strong determination of strengthening the basic Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing skills which will enable them to pursue their academics in a better way and to gain knowledge by reading and learning things on their own which interests them.

ACCURATE SCHEDULES 

STARTING FROM BASICS

These kids are exceptionally talented to learn multiple languages at their very early ages. Most of these kids struggle with the grammar rules and in turn they start to hate the language itself. The trick is to make them learn spoken language first and then turn them to Grammar but not the other way around.

To equip them with better learning ability we plan different events which try to improve their interpersonal skills and increase their confidence which is much needed for accomplishing their day to day tasks in a better way!

SETTING UP THE READING CHALLENGE

OUR ACTIVITIES TO BRING A DIFFERENCE

Mylibrary: Books are always a great source of learning, if kids are equipped with reading skill then they can select a book of their interest and read. Our target this year is, to make libraries accessible to all the kids of all the schools we are operating in.

PUT THE POWER IN THE LEARNER'S HANDS

Swecha: Giving freedom to the thoughts of kids, through Swecha Events we try to create a platform where they can show their skills and identify their hidden talent. (Read our recent event report here.)

KA Lite: E-Learning and visual learning is one of the more effective ways of making kids understand a given topic. Our plan is to make KA Lite available to kids so that they can go through the basics repeatedly whenever they need and when we are not available.

We want to be a source of guidance to them by answering their queries and as a point of contact where they can reach out for any suggestions.

WORKING TOGETHER FOR OPTIMAL & DESIRED OUTCOMES

At Sahaya we meet like minded graduation pursuing students as volunteers and in the process of teaching they gain and exhibit a great adaptive nature, showcase teamwork, and superb interpersonal skills unknowingly.

Enjoying the essence of learning while teaching.

"We make a living by what we get, but we make life by what we give" given by Winston Churchill suits to every volunteer of Sahaya. The satisfaction which we get being a Sahayan is immense.

The ‘growth mindset’

We are very fortunate to get a chance to organize events for Swecha2K15. Swecha is about what more we can do with young people from an early age to inculcate and teach a passion for continuous learning and growth and observe how they are participating, reading, learning and improving their skills. Events should provide an opportunity for the students to think, imagine, analyze and implement which finally leads to learning.

Students who embrace a ‘growth mindset’ – those who believe they can learn more despite failure -- perform better in events than those who don’t. So, choosing right kind of events plays an important role.

Measuring ‘the learning gain’

The ability to learn, understand and retain are not fixed and can change and increase with effort, diligence and hard work.

Role play and Running dictation were the events conducted for Swecha 2K15. Role play was conducted for VIII and XI which was quite tough for them. It went good in all the schools but it might have been much better if they were given more time for practice in presence of volunteers at Kukatpally school. Student have shown interest and enthusiasm to participate but Telugu medium class students found difficulty while speaking English. They were ready to speak in Telugu and they requested to conduct role play in Telugu in few classes but after explaining the importance of English, they were convinced, tried their best and a few performed beyond our expectations. Few role plays were very impressive by creating suitable environment for given situation creatively.

Running dictation was simple which helped in testing their reading, listening and writing skills. We observed that the words which we gave for running dictation were out of their capability. They need to improve a lot in spellings. But there was an active participation in all the schools for this event.

Our team has done meticulous work in organizing events that rigorously measures the performance of individual students, and include awarding. Turn up from VNR VJIT, Maheshwara, MNR, MLRIT(NSS Team) is the sole reason. Heart-full thanks to everyone who have worked hard to bring such huge group of people into Sahaya. Hope they continue with us.

I’d welcome your thoughts and ideas – what should we do to improve on the concepts, research and evidence discussed above to get better outcomes of education.

-Mounika Kolagani 

Career Guidance Program

Well it’s been a great year till now many great ideas turned from dreams to reality. And among them the one that stands out unique and exceptional would undoubtedly be the Career Guidance Program for class X Students.

On 21^st February 2015, we conducted the Career guidance program for class X students at ZPHS Kukatpally. Harsha Vardhan Ayyagari, one of the senior volunteers has taken up the session with an interactive presentation, motivated many and to add on I can say that everyone present at session were motivated.   

The presentation started with how to choose a career path, how to know one self also included each and every aspect that one could choose or take up after schooling to be precise after 10^th class. Harsha along with Akhil explained briefly about all the opportunities that one has after he steps out of his schooling. 

I still remember a girl named Soni came down to me and asked me what it takes to be a CARDIOLOGIST, well a small brain has started to think so much that actually motivated me to work more towards my career. And there was another who was so adamant that she wanted to only Polytechnic later followed by degree and then come back to the same school where she took this decision and help the upcoming students in their career. Her zeal and confidence made her lay the first stone towards her success. 

To end up I must say that it’s been a great day and a great session as well came to know about many things and learned many things.

The will to succeed itself is a key ingredient of success.

The Story Begins With You!

At the end of two weeks of promotion the book collection looks like this. Pretty good going when the promotion was made in schools and colleges.

The outpouring kindness of the contributors always warms my heart, So many schools, colleges allowed us to set up a drop box and do campaign in their premises. Many of our volunteers did not hesitate to do a campaign in their apartments and gather hand full of books for children. It is amazing how it all balances out for children in need!

Well we are still short of target books this year. 

As a part of reading sessions, designed to inspire kids to spend time reading that help develop the critical thinking, vocabulary and language skills a pre-readers needs, we need to accommodate them enough quality books. 

And that is why we encourage any size of contribution, new or gently used books even if it is just one book! 

Imagine the possibilities - Donate new or gently used books and imagine how far a passion for reading could take a child.

Teacher's Day at ZPHS KP School

One more memorable day at Sahaya. Teacher's day celebrated on 6th September at ZPHS Kukatpally School.

Yes, it happened in Sahaya session . 9th class students played the role of teacher mentoring, teaching  6th and 7th class students. They divided themselves into 6 groups and taught some topics to their juniors. I was really amazed by the way they explained to students by interacting and engaging them with riddles in between to make it interesting.

Parven explaining adverse effects of Plastic usage

Sreeram once said he had life time opportunity to experience the best mentoring session at ZPHS Narsapur. I felt sad that I couldn't experience such session. But I don’t regret anymore.

We had a wonderful experience in our last session by being a student and listening to 9th class students Parven and Rupali's class. Am not at all exaggerating on their teaching skills, they didn't require any volunteer to control the class. Students listened very keenly and showered with doubts too at the end of the class. Parven and her friends topic was on Pollution and they explained the drastic effects of plastic, paper  usagein a controlled way and the effects of deforestation. Rupali and her friends explained on solar panel usage, how power can be generated from solar source and its uses to mankind. Functioning of heart, types of blood groups and layers of earth were explained in detail by other students with diagram on board.

Block diagram of heart and its detailed explanation

Actually the day started with the inspiration to teach students practically about Computers. We had a practical hands on session using laptops.

Enthusiasm to learn more .

Kids undivided attention on laptop

Pooja revising the topics

They were very excited to know about the basic things like how to turn on PC, MS Word, calculator, home screen icons, wallpaper. In the afternoon session, students startled us with their teaching skills, at the end of the day as a token of appreciation, some gifts were given to students who taught in classes.

Parveen and her team

Gift to the students who taught layers of Earth effectively.

Thanks to all the volunteers wholeheartedly, lets move forward with many more events and workshops which brings out the inner talent of children.

-Divya.

SWECHA 2K14 - a success story...

As there will be a lot of things involved to call an event or a plan to be a success, SWECHA 2K14 event too involved a lot more things to call it a great success.

To let everyone know about this success story, I would start with the planning of this event that started many days prior to the decided date. Firstly, a great work done by the core team to list out the events that can be conducted to the students, which would enlighten their talent of applying their knowledge and sharpen their skills to come out with a solution for a given problem and then finalizing the events to be conducted by taking all the volunteers' views into account.

For any event to be executed in a perfect manner, we need volunteers... considering this point to be the most important, the idea of turning up the volunteers to the event, along their friends has justified the cause at its best. As far as I know, the number of volunteers that turned for this event was really immense and made the task easier to execute.

Then on the most awaited day, Aug. 2nd… in the morning, with all the volunteers... senior volunteers with the experience of being a part of such events earlier, planning to make it even more effective and the new volunteers, with the excitement to do the  things in a proper way and to experience the warm welcome of the students with their innocent and pure smiles posing a question.. "What's new to learn today?"… All the Sahayans, determined to transform the day into an another memorable page in Sahaya's diary gathered.... then the senior volunteers not only trying to inculcate their tradition of handling things in such events to the new volunteers but also giving them the freedom of making the day even more special by performing the things in a better way with their own ideas. All the volunteers, having a clear picture of the works to be done in the given time, got dispersed to the respective classes.

Then there starts the day... the interaction with the students who would come to us with a lot of queries in their minds, the moment they know about the events to be conducted on that day...some students anxious to show their skill, some students doubtful about their performance and some with excuses... by convincing all the students that this day is one of the special day that gives them a chance to shine up with their talents, to know the way to pen down the things they already learnt and their ability to answer a question by giving it a thought.With a lot number of doubts from the students and equal number of explanations by the volunteers, we ended up the execution of the tasks and gathered for a meet... there the core team members addressed all the experiences of both senior and new volunteers, giving an appreciable invitation to all the new ideas from the volunteers and a detailed discussion about the performance of the students in the events, we called it a day.

The action is done and to check the reaction or in other words to know result of the creative planning and the perfect execution, we need to go through the performance of the students in the events, after finishing this, there comes a need to appreciate the best performers with some prizes and for this we saved the date as Aug. 15, Independence day. On that day, with all the volunteers present there, saluting our national flag and witnessing the celebrations in the school, followed by the prize distributions by the senior volunteers to the students, who made their mark in the events with the best performance. It was the day which not only let us to celebrate the joy of making the SWECHA event a success, but also a day which reminded our school days, where we found everyone in white uniform representing a special day, the days when we eagerly waited for our turn to deliver that 10 times by-hearted speech in front of the huge crowd...

We were done with the celebration in the school and gathered for a meet where in there was a discussion about the upcoming sessions to be held, the new ideas that can be implemented, a brief explanation about the events conducted in Sahaya in the past and their impact on the students, different views of the volunteers about the events… and a very special moment where probably for the first time, a volunteer surprised the Sahaya team with her special appreciation... an album which described about Sahaya… then we ended up it with a brief idea to handle the next session...

Then in the very next session, as usual I was welcomed with a lots of smiling faces which in turn carried an expression of asking "What's the new thing that you teach us today?"… I was overwhelmed with their response and satisfaction about Swecha event... a boy came to me saying excitedly, that he secured a first prize from his section and I could clearly find a confident and happy feeling on his face for the achievement. When they came to know about the plan for the day to discuss the question paper, I could find most of the students being very active and desperate to reveal that their answers were correct. I felt so happy to know that most of the students were able to remember the things they learnt in previous sessions and were able to recollect them very easily. The appetite of students to learn new things and their ability to grasp the new things which were taught to them, raised the spirit in me that I must come up with even more creative ways to provide them with all necessary knowledge.

I conclude my post by conveying my gratitude to the Sahaya team, especially the person who introduced me to Sahaya and all the people who inspired me to be a part of such a great organisation. Being a part of Sahaya, I would definitely try my level best to do my bit for the sign of improvement in the students.

Insights & Evidence: Empowering Successful Kids!

Our volunteers know how motivating it can be for kids to discover their "sparks" - those activities and interests that truly engage kids to be their best. Discovering those sparks can help students express their personalities.

We found that creative arts, athletics, and learning are the top interests that kids identify as their personal sparks through various interactions with kids in schools we visit. Other activities like reading, current affairs, nature, and curiosity to know new things also spark kids’ passions.  Kids need attention necessary to help them identify and nurture their sparks. Swecha events - a platform where kids get freedom of expression with joy.

Helping kids identify their sparks, and providing them the opportunity to develop those interests, appear to be important additions to academic educational methods and help them achieve success.

Every caring effort of volunteers will be fruitful when students learn and reflect what they learnt. We always offer a challenge that’s well-matched to the child’s skill level, with clear goals.

One of the factors we identified in turning schoolers onto focusing on their spark is self-efficacy: students’ sense that they are competent and able to have enough knowledge of things happening around them, around the world. To encourage this in kids, we try to restructure learning so as to maximize opportunities for success  by building on skills that students required.

Swecha 2K14 events will help kids not merely be “okay,” but be the best they can be: confident, capable, passionate and thrive.

We thank all the volunteers for their efforts and the support in organizing Swecha event that develops kids do better on a wide variety of developmental outcomes.

Thank you for being awesome

To make all our volunteer feel

that there is something in them

To look at the sunny side of everything

and make optimism come true.

To those who think only the best, work only for the best,

and to expect only the best.

To be just as enthusiastic about the success of organization

as are about children.

To learn from the challenges of the past

and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

To wear a cheerful countenance at all times

and give every kid you meet a smile.

To volunteer who give so much time to the improvement of children

To every little deed, to every caring effort 

Its time to appreciate who does something AWESOME.

A glimpse of work process with the help of Sanjana :-)

Cheers,

Srikanth

Stay tuned for updates on Giving kids the joy of reading

Mentoring Process at ZPGHS, Narsapur

I can say "life time opportunity for me to experience the Best"

We all know mentoring is not a new concept, but it only matters on how we look into this process. For me, mentoring process should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound.

The inception of this idea was borne out from a discussion between our Senior Volunteer Pro G.Karthik and our Chief Editor Nischal on April 28th 2013, where it started off with "encouraging some of the upper class students (10th) to teach/mentor the lower class". By the time it was an impossible proposition, but when we started analyzing on its practical implementation, we got to know that children will get benefited with the opportunities tailored to the needs within their own circumstances.

It's a tough decision to start off our mentoring process with Narsapur school because of its distance decay with other schools that we'd adopt. However with all faith driven hope, we have experienced the "Best Moments" during this entire mentoring process.

On 3rd August 2013....

                                                   Super Team of  13 lead by Ms.Shivani

                                                       During Mentoring Process

We noticed that the "Communication" plays a vital role in this process, where 10th class children should have rapport with 6 & 7 class children  that helps this program run smoothly.


On 15th Aug 2013...
 
Here is the Beautiful Picture story....

                                             We won't find any beautiful art than this...

                                  Students were practicing to perform for a Patriotic song

                                                                          At 7.30am

                                                                         At 8.30am

In this process, mentor efforts will bring energy to the program which able to expand participation and increase overall support from the participants.

                       One of our Mentors Ch. Priyanka with her feedback on this process

                                                              Feedback in detail

Very simple feedback, but effective as well, she strongly believe in mentoring process which is about individual learning and growth.

                                                                       Super dance Show

                                                                       Full House

                                                                         Patriotism

The main intention is to make our Mentors to gain invaluable insight beyond their own education and experience. In turn we strongly believe, these mentors can inspire and guide all the Volunteers of Sahaya in near future.

We are greatly looking forward to have these mentoring programs regularly in all Sahaya adopted schools for the benefit of Children. We will be encouraged students with specific goals and expectations in their academic pursuits.

Finally, we would like to THANK each and every volunteer by name for their strong foundation towards Event Oriented Activities under the name "Swecha".

With Respects
Sreeram Bh
Team SAHAYA

August 15th celebrations - Swecha 2k13

I have been planning to write a blog post since SWECHA 2k13 event started . So, let me begin with the  SWECHA  event. Every year SAHAYA conducts various activities to bring out the talent of children.  This year for Aug 15th , Extempore and Quiz were conducted. Despite many hurdles, Our volunteers and children made this event a huge success.

Initially when we explained children regarding Extempore event on Day1 in Shamshiguda school, the participation of students was not up to the mark . Later when we gave them some tips on how to remember the topic while speaking , how the flow should continue from introduction to conclusion , 80% of the class were interested to participate. Some children chose their own topics to speak and asked us to provide the content . In a session, prior to the event day , kids were well prepared by then and they insisted us to conduct a mock event.  Seeing the fellow mates participate, other children also enthusiastically came forward for participation.

Coming to the Quiz , D.Kiran from 7th class & Ch.Sandhya Rani  from 8th T.M (Shamshiguda school) were out of our imagination in I.Q terms . In visual round, we din’t know some of the places , but these children at one go, revealed the answers. They were happy with the way events were conducted and insisted us to conduct  such kind of events.

 I would like to specially mention about the SWECHA event conducted at ZPGHS Narsapur because in this school senior children mentored their juniors in this event process.

“ Proper Prior Planning Prevents Pitifully Poor Performance “

This was perfectly executed by Sreeram. One session took place prior the event conduction day  where Sreeram , Srinath ,Ramaraju played a key role in explaining the team mentors(10th class students) about the Extempore event. When Juniors have any doubt regarding the event , they would pose a question to the Senior where they would justify the answer by taking the assistance of books from Library. Shivani (10th class) took the lead role in mentoring the whole process .

Coming to Aug 15th , My day started by reaching KP school to collect the gifts for students who excelled in these events. Later reached Shamshiguda school , after flag hoisting ,Nagalakshmi gave a speech which inspired students to further participate in many more events.

Real celebrations started when I reached back KP school . Phani gave an introductory session to new volunteers . Later all volunteers gathered in a class and here comes the most awaiting part I want to share. Sreeram  came up with an activity for volunteers . Some chits were prepared in which some real time scenarios were posed as questions . This is one of the best session I had  in SAHAYA till date.

When Karun was posed a question regarding  the effective measures to be taken in maintaining the quality of a session  , He replied in his most modest way explaining that class can be divided into teams which develops a competitive spirit between them leading to the righteous results. 

When its Anirudh turn , he chose a question to mention the various  volunteer  development programs  .He replied that Group discussions , Mock interviews can be conducted.  This question was perfectly answered later by Nischal saying that “ SAHAYA “ itself is a volunteer development program . In fact many volunteers directly /indirectly conveyed the same while sharing their experiences .

The most interesting question “ What are the steps to be taken for president role “ was posed to Srinath and he replied effectively that He would think as a volunteer, how it can be done and in the role of a student , what will be expected from volunteer and whatever decision he takes should be accepted by others too. He also mentioned that he was very thankful to Sreeram for making him as a decision maker.

In between these questionnaire , memento  are given to the best performers in every aspect . Special thanks to creative head Srikanth and Sanjana for making the hand made mementos .

“A problem well stated is a problem half solved “

Following this statement,  Sreeram asked Akhilesh and Santhosh to share their problems faced while conducting this event and had a discussion on how to prevent it further. Last but not the least, children's most favourite volunteer Ramaraju (birthday boy) shared his views on how to control an in-disciplined class. He quoted at last about his experience saying “Experience to be experienced “ .

            On every such occasion , we come to know that session has ended by Sreeram’s single sentence “ Thanks to Dharani and Srikanth for their valuable support “ and Nischal’s announcement “ Assemble for a photo “ . :-)

Had the most memorable day in SAHAYA journey – 67th Independence day

Cheers,

Divya Panjala

Introducing Swecha - Celebrating freedom