Our Club is associated with the
Bhavishya Yaan Centre at Marathi Municipal School, Dixit Road, Vile Parle East,
Mumbai since its inception over 3 years ago. In the current rotary year, our Club has commenced a similar initiative at Sane
Guruji Marathi Vidyalaya at Santacruz West, Mumbai. Past President Rtn.Sukh Dev Puri and Past
President of Inner Wheel Club of Bombay West R/Ann Urmil Puri have been the
driving force behind success of this project, spending time and money to ensure
high quality results which some of us could witness at the grand finale of the
Summer Camp organized by the students recently.
The students are mostly from an
underprivileged background and are perhaps the first generation in their
respective families to have reached the secondary level in school
education. These students could
effortlessly perform on stage, a variety theme-based
entertainment-cum-educative programme on “Goa”. Their rendition of talks, poems and songs in
English language with clear diction and pronunciations was heartening. It was
quite delighting to witness the event and at some level, feel proud to be a
rotarian from RCBW which had made this transformation possible in them. 
Much of the credit to this
success goes to the Centre Manager, Ms.Deepa Shetiya – a young, energetic,
dynamic, enthusiastic teacher entrusted with the responsibility to conduct the
sessions and manage day-to-day affairs for the project on behalf of our
Partners, Vidya (an NGO engaged among
other things in educating the underprivileged children).
Speaking to her on the sidelines
of the Summer Camp Finale, one could not avoid her contagious smile nor could
one be unaffected by the tremendous passion she has towards this project. In one breadth she talked about how
intelligent the children were in picking up newer skills and in the next she
would be praising their parents for their support. Pride was seen all over her face when she
talked about the toppers in the last Board Exams were all from the first batch
of Bhavishya Yaan project. She
introduced us to some of the potential toppers at the next Board Exams for
which, through her efforts and some assistance from our Club, would be put
through intensive coaching.
Ms.Shetiya and her band of
colleagues from Vidya had organized a trip to Kidzania for students of Bhavishya Yaan, the cost of which was
sponsored by RCBW. She narrated the
enjoyable and learning experience of the children which they will remember for
a long time to come. The students could
first-hand experience different skill-based careers and try their hands at them
for earning tokens which they could later splurge on games and delicacies of
their choice.
Earlier, with the objective of brushing
up their life skills and English skills, giving them vocational guidance,
encouraging them to go for further education and preparing them for adolescence
age by teaching them sex education and stress management, a Finishing School
Session was organized for the students spread over two days at Banganga and
Chembur Bhavishya Yaan Centres. The
methodology used was Interactive Discussions, Role Play and Group
Activities. Among the topics covered
were fear, nervousness, positive thinking, focus, power of thoughts, verbal
communication, non-verbal communication, listening, power of appreciation and
perception. The learning was experiential with games, skits, role plays and
other facilitative techniques to bring the best out of the students. Children were made to present in front of
camera twice and showed increase in confidence level. Experts from the respective fields made
presentations on de-addiction, sexuality, etc.
At the end of the Finishing School Session, students were rewarded with
a visit to Imagica.
Truly, Bhavishya Yaan is turning
out to be a Centre of Excellence, transforming
students from less privileged backgrounds and making them at par with students of accredited private schools. To quote an employer-housewife of a maid
whose daughter is a Bhavishya Yaan student…. ‘how come your daughter speaks as
good an English as my daughter who goes to a convent school’. Ofcourse, the employer-housewife has yet to
see so many other talents of these children which they learn and develop as
part of Bhavishya Yaan.
Would you like to contribute to
this noble project? Your time, your
skills or your money can give a further impetus and can help us in opening
additional Centres of Excellence !!
-
Rtn.Aslam
Merchant with inputs from Ms.Deepa Shetiya, Centre Manager, Bhavishya Yaan
No comments:
Post a Comment