The core team at Guruji Education Foundation is keen about working on many meaningful projects. Here is a list of some projects currently being worked on actively.
Holistic Higher Education for College Students
At Guruji Education Foundation, we are passionate about supporting all deserving students who have the potential but lack the financial and informational resources they need to study beyond high school. We provide assistance to enable students to focus on the holistic development based on their aptitude; the student’s growth as a person, in symbiosis with their growth as a student; make them independent and capable, to the extent that they are able to pay back the foundation both in terms of the finances and guidance to more junior students.
Its flagship project is to support the holistic higher education of high-potential but underprivileged students. The project has 79 active students, 12 attritions and, 50 alumni, who are working in companies such as Microsoft, Dassault, Accenture, Infosys, L &T, TCS, and Gift-a-deed. Of the seventy-nine active college students, fifty-six students come from villages, while twenty-three come from metros or cities; 48 are girls and 31 are boys. Students’ progress is monitored through monthly thinking forms by their mentors. The foundation ascertains the ground-level situation and develops a rapport with the student’s family, before admitting them to the foundation.
The foundation runs another project to educate individuals from distressed families such as Cancer afflicted, Corona Afflicted, Suicide-prone farmers, Single-mother children, and Orphans. The project does not consider the academic brilliance of the students but provides them an education that is appropriate to their abilities.
Adolescent Development Program – Super-30
Another project is to holistically develop adolescents. The project is running at 5 different schools (Nerul, Thane, Osmanabad, Chikhurde (Sangli), Ramgad (Kankavli)) and focuses on physical literacy, psychological strength, intellectual sharpness, and entrepreneurial zeal as well as life skills. We had to switch to online mode in the last year. We are planning to build a traveling computing lab, initially for 6 villages in the Kankavli area, to teach software development using MIT US’s Scratch platform to develop creative, critical, and computational thinking. We are also establishing online classes for spoken English.
The target for AY 2021-22 is to add one more school for the complete program, six schools from the Kankavli area for teaching Scratch (if schools open up), and three schools only for spoken English classes, anywhere in India.
e-Innovative Counselling:
The foundation, based on its experience of developing customized career plans has developed e-innovative counseling services. The services identify career options and holistic development plan using its PAAA (Prospects, Aspirations, Aptitude and Attitude, Achievements) model and SACH (strengths, areas of development, Career prospects, and hazards) analysis.
The target for AY 2021-22 is to counsel 100 students.
Responding to Covid 19:
Like everyone else, we also faced a grim and unprecedented COVID challenge during the academic year 2020-21. We responded to it with multiple initiatives such as professional counseling to 12th standard students, the ‘connect with gratitude’ program to connect all our students with accomplished individuals for one-to-one conversations, moving our adolescent development program to the online format, introducing various online competitions such as essay, elocution, solo table tennis, and chess, and providing subsistence support to our students’ families, wherever required.
Ladder Library
We believe that appropriate reading and movies play a crucial role in students’ development process. We, therefore, have been building a library of books and movies for both schools as well as college students. A number of experts have been helping us to build an evolving and segregated ladder of books. Each rung of the ladder represents a class (grade) and contains English and vernacular books. The students are encouraged to write reviews of the book and discuss them in groups
Helping Students in Distressed Families
Supporting children from distressed families such as cancer afflicted, acid victims, suicide-prone farmers, prostitutes, jawan martyrs, and orphans. Such families go through psychological trauma and have limited financial resources. We are collaborating with volunteers at Tata Memorial for cancer afflicted, Saha’s foundation for acid victims’, Adhar (Akola) for suicide-prone farmers’, and Vijay Krida Mandal for prostitutes’ families. We aim to help the members of the family that need holistic support in their development and education.
The Goal for AY 2019-20 is to support 25 students from distressed families.