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Contents

Purpose of our project ............................................................................................................................. 2

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 2

Strengths of Divya Deepa ......................................................................................................................... 3

Mission .................................................................................................................................................... 3

Community Development ........................................................................................................................ 3

Conception of the idea of a school ........................................................................................................... 4

Initial phases ........................................................................................................................................... 4

Initial problems faced .............................................................................................................................. 5

Special features of the school .................................................................................................................. 6

Medium of learning ................................................................................................................................. 7

Contextual Learning ................................................................................................................................. 7

Existing system in the school ................................................................................................................... 7

Curriculum ............................................................................................................................................... 7

Health Education ..................................................................................................................................... 8

Daily Schedule ......................................................................................................................................... 8

Examination............................................................................................................................................. 9

Whats next after 10th / SSLC .................................................................................................................. 9

Kids Bank ............................................................................................................................................... 10

Eco Farm Vanasuma .............................................................................................................................. 10

Residential Volunteers ........................................................................................................................... 10

Progress so far ....................................................................................................................................... 11

Setting up of the library ......................................................................................................................... 12

Fund raising initiatives by Divya DeepaTrust ......................................................................................... 14

Can old newspapers change this world?............................................................................................. 14

The volunteers from Germany ............................................................................................................... 17

Our experience at the school ................................................................................................................. 18

Recommendations ............................... ......................... .............................. ............................. .............. 19

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Purpose of our project

We the students of SDMIMD served as volunteers at Kaliyuva Mane, Kenchalagudu

village where we undertook various activities like setting up the library, teaching the children

and understanding the organization and giving a few suggestions to increase their visibility and

get more volunteers.

Introduction

Why is India still a developing country? Some of the reasons for the same are poverty,

overpopulation and the political system itself. But the root cause of all this is education.

Education is the passport to accelerate economic growth and is the key to build human capital.

The constitution of India guarantees equal opportunity for all. But the children at Kenchalagudu

village have not been fortunate enough. With just one government school and most of the

students opting out of school to do the household chores, Kaliyuva Mane(home for learning)

an alternative school is trying to brighten the future of such opportunity deprived children. This

school is founded under Divya Deepa charitable trust. The schools mission is to transform

these children into self reliant citizens of India. It is founded on the principle School for

Children instead of children for School and is inspired by the ideals of Sri Aurobindo and

Swami Vivekananda.

Children want to learn things in which they are interested, at their own pace and thus

their personality blossoms in a unique way. Unfortunately in regular schools, all children have

to compulsorily learn certain things, in a certain way, in a certain time frame and have to pass

the examination in first attempt. If not, the particular child is labeled as unintelligent.

Kaliyuva Mane is thus encouraging the physical, emotional, educational development of

the economically and socially challenged children.

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Strengths of Divya Deepa

> Use of exclusive recycled and handmade papers

> Excellent proof reading support in English & Kannada> Assistance to put your thoughts in an effective and creative way

> Quality & time consciousness

> Reasonable charges

Mission

Divya Deepa has started with a mission of providing value based quality education to

rural and underprivileged children. Divya Deepa strongly believes that development of the

nation can be achieved by working at the grass roots level. It feels that every child has an equal

opportunity to learn, innovate and excel in life.

The trust is also involved in community development, youth and women empowerment

in villages and environmental awareness programs.

Divya Deepa endorses the following mission statement

To focus on the opportunity deprived children, helping them to get a move on with their

lives and show the way to achieve their dreams, by providing necessary help, care, empathy

and value based education.

Divya Deepa has bagged "Rotary Ramya Award" given for excellence in Social Service

Community Development

Divya Deepa has undertaken several community development works:

> Regular health camps for the benefit of neighboring villagers

> Sports facilities for rural youth

> Employment opportunities for rural youth

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Conception of the idea of a school

Mr. Ananth Kumar is an electric engineer by profession and used to work for a township

design company. In the year 1991 Mr. Ananth Kumar and attended the Vivekanandakendra in

Kanyakumari and undertook training in the field of setting up a school. He then made up his

mind that he wanted to work with children. He returned to his hometown Mysore and took up

a house at Salhundi where he and his wife Mrs. Padma used to take supplementary classes for

the village children in the mornings and evenings. Drop outs from school used to be a part of

these classes. Their initiative to teach young children was well taken by the local community

and they trusted them and sent their children for classes. The number of children went up to 60

students by the year 1992.Then the idea of starting a school came up so that more children

could be provided with quality education and their needs could be catered to. Mr. Ananth

Kumar prepared a proposal for the same and this he sent to his ex employer in Pondicherry Mr.

L M Shah. Mr. Shah gave his approval for the same and said that he would support this project.

Then was the tedious task of searching land to start the school in 2000-2001.They had

to face a number of problems because as per Government laws, one cannot buy agricultural

land in their own name unless they are agriculturists. More over land cannot be bought from

the scheduled caste or schedule tribe. It took two and a half years to obtain special permission

from the assistant commissioner of police to buy land. Finally they were able to purchase

approximately 3 acres of land at Kenchalagudu Village from an engineer who used to undertake

sericulture at Rs 6.5 Lakhs. There was only a shed with a room and this shed was repaired to

start the school.

Initial phases

The only teachers at that point of time were Mr. Ananth Kumar and his wife Mrs.

Padma. They hired three more teachers and paid them a salary of Rs 1500 a month and

enrolled students in the age group of 5 to 15 years. Language was a major problem as the

children knew how to communicate only in Kannanda. There were no classrooms, and Mr.

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Ananth Kumar had to put in his personal funds for a period of 6 to 7 months. A foreigner

contributed Rs 20000.He then met with Mr. Shah and he agreed to contribute Rs 10000 every

month. Mr. Kumar then connected with the youth who were software engineers from National

Institute of engineering and JCE College Mysore. They had their own business but wanted to do

something for the school. They first came and saw the school and then agreed to support it.

They took up the initiative of selling greeting cards and sold them at their college and were able

to bring Rs7000 for the trust. A Times of India journalist wrote an article about the school. He

wanted to do something personally for the school and organized a musical event in 2007 at the

open air theater Mysore and raised a sum of Rs 300000 for the school. This money was invested

in T-shirts and stalls were set up in various companies in Bangalore like HCL, Juniper to name a

few. Meanwhile the strength of the children also increased from 14 to 22.

Mr. L M Shah gave Rs 2 lakhs in the initial phases of construction of the school. In 1999

the trust was registered in the name of Divya Deepa. Now the school has open classrooms, a

computer lab, library, an office room, science lab and a multipurpose hall.

Initial problems faced

y It was very difficult to find a cook to cook food for the children as a person who couldbreak the shackles of caste and religion was required. The caste system still exists and if

a cook came from a higher caste, the lower cast people will not eat the food he cooks. In

the initial phases Mrs. Padma and the children used to cook food. In 2005 the school

was able to find two cooks and they are still with the school till date.

y Another problem that the school faces even today is that of manpower. People from thevillage think that it is below their dignity to serve as a janitor in the school. It is verydifficult to get good teachers because of the location and money. More over in India it is

generally the low income people who become teachers and they are not able to provide

the children with quality education. Parents want their children to be engineers and

doctors, but not primary school teachers.

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y Some teachers say that the children are not interested in their studies. Even when itcomes to the volunteers, some of them are sent back and the others leave by

themselves. The children have a good grasping ability but the main problem that they

face is that they are not interested in writing.

Special features of the school

FEES: The school does not collect any fees.

NUCLEUS: The nucleus of the school is children. The school believes that it can bend any rule in

order to make the children learn happily.

ADMISSIONPROCESS: Entrance tests are not conducted. The intake of children purely depends

on the availability of resources and not on the basis of caste and religion.

APPROACH: Every child is given enough time to feel at home and emotionally comfortable. This

may take from few days to several months. Learning is through activities, experiments,

interactions and formal teaching. State board books, NCERT books, ICSE books along with other

teaching aids are being used. Curriculum for each child is decided depending on the initial

assessment, grasping ability, flair, age etc. Teacher to student ratio varies from 1:1 to 1:10.

TEACHER: The teachers over here are not strict task masters. The teacher studies the

background, likes, dislikes of the child and builds an emotional rapport with the children before

commencing lessons.

FREEDOM: In order to succeed one must fail. Children here are taught to discover, explore and

expand their knowledge through various learning experiences.

EXAMINATION: To continuously monitor the childs progress, oral/written tests are conducted

at regular intervals. The children are not labeled as passed or failed. Children will face SSLC

Examination conducted by the Karnataka State Board at the age of 16 years, after studying for a

minimum of 4 years at Kaliyuva Mane as resident scholars

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LEARNINGAREAS: Innovative learning areas at Kaliyuva Mane stimulate independent thinking.

Medium of learning

This is a dual medium school. English and Kannada which is the mother tongue is taught with

equal emphasis.

Contextual Learning

Learning in this school is not restricted to class rooms alone. It can happen anywhere and

anytime. Value education is taught through practical examples.

Existing system in the school,

The school does not follow the system of children studying in classes depending on their

age. The classes are not classified under the category of standard I to X. Instead classes in this

school is divided into 5 groups namely Chiguru (the tiny tots), Chinmayi, Chaitanya, Vivek and

Arvind (consists of students in the X standard). The children are put into any one of the groups

depending on their age, grasping ability and what they have already learnt and know. It is

indeed been a huge achievement for these children as most of them did not even know how to

read and write Kannada and English until they came here. They have not been privileged

enough to attended formal school like other children from class I to X. They have only had

formal education for 3 years and are now going to write their boards examinations this April.

This will be the first batch of standard X students passing out from this school.

Curriculum

The curriculum being followed by "Kaliyuva Mane" is one of its kinds and flexible based

upon the child's interest and response. Curriculum cuts across formal barriers and enables a

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student to educate him or her using naturally-available resources has proved to be a unique,

but effective education method. The teacher generally plays the role of an elder brother or

sister. He or she plays, sings, educates, and empowers his or her children through non-formal

education. The influx of new ideas filtered through familiar channels helps make learning

dynamic and fun.

The curriculum which has been developed by Kaliyuva Mane is guided by the following

principles:

1. Uphold the dignity of the individual with Love, Care and Empathy

2. Nourishing the innate talent in child

3. Develop good character

4. Making education fun.

Health Education

Kaliyuva Mane currently follows a health education curriculum to complement its basic

literacy initiative. While the primary focus remains literacy, basic health education and

preventive health care have a tremendous impact on the child's fitness. Yoga is used as an

effective tool for making children stronger and healthier. Regular health checkup and

awareness camps are also held to create awareness about health and hygiene.

Daily Schedule

Kaliyuva Mane insists that the schools run six days a week for six hours each day [1 hour

for lunch break]. Usually the schedule is flexible and modified according to students interest,

perception level and involvement. The daily schedule generally runs as follows:

Daily Schedule

Teaching Science, Maths, languages - 2 Hrs

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Assembly [National Anthem, Songs] - 1/2 Hr

Mental faculty training - 1/2 Hr

Craft - 1/2 Hr

Talent enhancement - 1/2 Hr

Reading/Writing - 1/2 Hr

Work Experience - 1/2 Hr

Examination

The objective of the school is to train the children to:

(i) To train the children to face the life cheerfully with confidence (In short teaching life skills)

(ii) To train the children to face the S.S.L.C. board examination with confidence (without

pressure) at the age of 16 years.

(iii) To continuously monitor the progress of the children, simple tests are being conducted at

frequent intervals. (Not to label the child 'passed' or 'failed')

Whats next after 10th / SSLC

Based on the childs interest, he/she will be sent for relevant course. No matter whether

its Engineering, Pure Sciences, Arts, Medicine, Commerce, Film Making, Photography etc.

Essence is to realize the dream of each and every kid and transform them as a self reliant

citizen.

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Kids Bank

Children are given a cheque book, a pass book, a cash box, an account book and mock

currency. Every month a cheque towards toiletries, stationeries is give. Writing a challan,

children deposit this into their accounts. When cash is required, children write a personal

cheque and submit it to the bank. Children also learn by working a maximum of two hours or by

helping others. They work in the dairy, kitchen, office, farm etc. Each student functions as a

Bank manager on rotation basis. In this way the children are learning banking transactions, the

importance and limitations of money, work culture, arithmetic etc.

Eco Farm Vanasuma

The total area of approximately 3 acres is being developed into an eco farm

vanasuma. Children are exposed to organic farming, Eco sanitation, Rain water harvesting,

Bio mass stove, Gobar gas plant, Eco friendly buildings, use of eco chip boards. Children are

developing eco consciousness.

Residential Volunteers

An ideal volunteer at Kaliyuva Mane is

y A service minded person willing to lead a simple meaningful lifey Openness to ideasy Willingness to volunteer for at least one yeary Readiness to accept any responsibility depending on the need of the institutiony Have good English language skillsy Have transcended the bars of caste, religion etc

Divya Deepa offers its volunteers

y Vegetarian food

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y Simple accommodation with attached bathy A very healthy emotional atmospherey Honorarium sufficient enough to take care of their personal needsy A platform to discover and rejuvenate

Progress so far

Year Resident scholars Day scholars

2005-2006 4 10

2006-2007 9 14

2007-2008 16 21

2008-2009 21 20

0

5

10

15

20

25

2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009

Resident scholars

Day scholars

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The numbers of resident scholars and day scholars have been continuously increasing.

The school has made a positive impact on the children and the children have developed an urge

to study.

Donors also receive Tax benefits under section 80G.

Setting up of the library

The library to all academic institutions is an integral part of the school, where the

students can learn and enhance their knowledge in different fields. In KaliyuvaMane

students are taught to make effective use of this facility. And as a part of their curriculum they

have included reading periods in students time table apart from their daily classes.

The library here has been recently constructed and is just adjacent to the entrance. It is small in

size but serves the purpose. The library consists of books for all age groups in the school

including the teachers. The library is divided into 5 different cupboards, each serving a different

purpose.

The cupboards are named as Library 1, Library 2, Library 3, Library 4 and Library5.

Library 1

Consisted of text books of different subjects belonging to Vivek and Arvind groups.

Library 2

Consisted of Philosophical, General Knowledge, Religious, and other General Books in Kannada

as well as in English Language. These books are usually donated by others. There was no log of

the books present and a proper organization of the same was needed.

Library 3

Consisted of English magazines, story books and Dictionaries.

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Library 4

Extra workbooks of different subjects were put.

Library 5

Consisted of various workbooks ofChiguru, Chinmaya & Chaitanya groups. Each rack contained

books pertaining to a particular group but were mixed up. If a student or a teacher had to

locate a book belonging to an individual student it became very much difficult as the person

had to go through all the other books to find his one.

So, for library 5 we segregated the books based on the various groups into which the

children were divided, that is Chiguru, Chinmaya & Chaitanya. Each shelf was divided based on

group/class. The books were separated according to various students and a partition was

created to separate the books of each student. Similarly the books of the other two groups

were segregated.

For Library 2, since the books were completely jumbled up. We had to assemble the

books according to the language, divide according to the various categories within the books,

list out a database for all the books and finally label them accordingly and thereby maintain a

log of the books present in library 2. The Kannada books were less in number as compared to

the English Books and listing out the database for the later was done with the help of the

computer. Thus the list was created comparatively faster than that of Kannada books. To

prepare a database for the Kannada books manual entry was made book by book on a log

sheet. This was very time consuming as only Bianca could read and write Kannada in our group.

But, with the help of the students things started getting done at a faster pace and we could

complete our task in around 4 days. The others helped in arranging and labeling the Kannada

books.

We followed a particular system in labeling the books. The labeling of the books was

done according to the cupboard, the particular shelf were the book was kept, the category into

which it fell and serial number in that category.

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For example: A book labeled as L2S1Ph 21. This meant the book belonged to Cupboard 2, shelf 1,

of Philosophy category and the serial number under Philosophy was 21. This was how the

various books were labeled.

With the above labeling the exact location of any book could be detected easily. Also as

this cupboard was to be used basically only by teachers the labeling would not cause any

complication as it might have if children were using.

Fund raising initiatives by Divya DeepaTrust

1. PAPER EMPOWERMENTCan old newspapers change this world?

This is a unique concept, wherein Divya Deepa trust collects old newspapers and magazines

from the persons willing to contribute to the trust in kind. The proceeds from the sale of the

newspapers is used to support the education of children in Kaliyuva Mane.

A small act of kindness is more powerful than the grandest of good intentions.

The city is divided into various sectors and the papers are collected in cycles of two months by

the volunteers.

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Interested people can just log into their website or call to the trust, give in their address and

volunteers from the trust would visit the concerned person and collect the old newspapers and

magazines.

Here are a few other options through which one can support the organization:

2 GREETING CARDS

Buy artistic greeting cards made by rural youth at Divya Deepa. Here are a few sample greeting

cards.-

3.T-S

hirts.Stalls at different corporate companies like HCL, Wipro, Juniper, SPI, Excel-Soft etc have been

put up, where T-Shirts with inspirational quotes along with the greeting cards are sold.

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The proceeds of the sales of these products go entirely to Divya Deepa.

4. Screen printing and DTP

Creative designing of multi color brochures, souvenirs, magazines, newsletters, advertisement

matters etc.

Screen printing of visiting cards, letterheads, invitations, certificates, bill books, special stickers

[paper, plastic and O.H.P. sheet stickers] screen printing on diary, pens etc. using imported 140S

screen for sharp resolution.

Desk Top Publishing (DTP) : books, project reports, articles in Kannada, English & Hindi- more

than 2000 fonts and clip arts to choose - high resolution scanning, laser

printouts

Seminar and conference materials like badges, scribble pads, files and folders etc.

5. Sponsor a kid's education.

They say it is important to Realize the power of WE! One could find out more about the

volunteering work in their website.

Program Details

Pragathi Rs.1000 per month for the entire life cycle of a

child.

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Vidyaa Rs.500 per month for supporting education.

Dhanwantri Rs.250 per month for supporting Health care.

Satwaa Rs.1000 for occasions like birthdays,

anniversaries.

Chaitanya Contribution in kind like

y Rice/dal/oil etcy Stationery, Educational CDsy Anything that is useful

The volunteers from Germany

Two German volunteers from ICDE (Inter Culture Dialogue Exchange) are staying at

Kaliyuva Mane as resident volunteers. They have become the family. In Germany after the

students complete their high school, they have a choice of either doing military service (9

months) or social service (1year) abroad. The students have to enlist themselves in a German

organization called ICJA (Intercultural youth exchange program) which maintains contacts with

similar organizations in India and other counties, and depending upon the need in various trusts

are assigned to them. This is how Mathews and Swain from Germany came to Divya Deepa

.When we interacted with them. They told us that their first assignment when they arrived was

to develop the kitchen garden. From what we could see it was a job neatly done and serves its

purpose.

They also added that initially when they came, about 7 months ago, the children faced

problems in English and basic mathematics skills. They concentrated more on these areas by

taking classes every day and now one can see a considerable improvement. They also take

computer classes for the children.

They also introduced new games such as Fulka ball (German Game), which the children

adored and love playing from what we saw.

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When we asked them whether they were homesick, they mentioned that they loved it here and

were glad they came here.

Our experience at the school

1. The children in this school are very friendly, intelligent, have the urge to learn andalways have a smiling face. They are encouraged to write and speak in English although

their mother tongue is Kannada. The school is located in a village where they get

electricity for only 6 hours a day but none of the facilities that are provided for the

children are compromised on. Equal emphasis is given to both work and play. Learning

for these children does not stop during school hours. Educational charts are put up all

over the school and in their dormitories so that there is constant learning that is taking

place.

2. The teachers in the school are very friendly with the children and each one of themshares a personal bond with them. This encourages them to study and even seek help

when they face difficulties in their studies. The school does not believe in the principle

Spare the rod, or spoil the child. The teachers do not use the stick to teach the

children or punish them. Punishments are hardly given and if given are in the form of

sitting down and facing the wall. The children take this punishment very seriously. The

children refer to the teachers as Aunty rather than Maam. The school has no principal

Mr. Ananth Kumar with the help of his colleagues run the school. They lovingly refer to

him as Brother.

3. We undertook the activities of selling greeting cards as volunteers from the school. Wewere able to raise Rs. 1940 by selling 97 greeting cards at Rs. 20 each. We also made the

library more interactive and lively by putting up various educational charts. Since the

library is mainly used by children we put up cartoon charts which would gain their

attention. We interacted with the children from various groups and taught them how to

play games like Business, Math Whiz and Puzzles that would enhance their thinking

ability. We encouraged the students of Arvind group (who are writing their class X

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examinations this year) to not give up their dreams of studying further and to improve

their written and spoken English skills.

4. Throughout the time we spent at Kaliyuva Mane, we got a lot of love from everyone inthe organization and especially from the children. They made beautiful cards for all of us

using handmade paper and were eager to know when we would visit them again. All the

cards that were made by them carried a simple but meaningful message thank you for

helping our Kaliyuva Mane.

Recommendations

1. PROBLEM: Lack of visibility.RECOMMENDATIONS:

a) The Sign board on the main road on the way to Kaliyuva Mane does not standout. On the entire stretch of road leading to the school, there is only one Sign

board. Installing Sign boards at least 2 - 3 kms towards the school would gain

the attention of people passing by and would enable its well wishers to identify

the place easily.

b) By including the bus numbers and routes in the brochures, well wishers willeasily get information to get to the school instead of logging on to their web site

each time.

c) The volunteers can approach various corporate houses with the handmadegreeting cards that the school sells. This will help bring in more funds and

improve visibility.

2. PROBLEM: Manpower.RECOMMENDATIONS:

a) By approaching various degree colleges in Mysore city, it will be easier to getvolunteers in the form of college students to teach the students art, craft and

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music on the weekends. This would encourage and help the children develop

their creative abilities and enable the school to bring in more volunteers through

word of mouth.

b) The Trust can attract new people to volunteer through their existing blog andvarious communities on the internet such as Facebook and Orkut. All the existing

volunteers serving the school should post updates and give information about the

school and its activities through this medium. This will enable more people to

take note of the school and volunteer in the form of service or kind.

3. PROBLEM: Funds.RECOMMENDATIONS:

a) The existing Paper Empower scheme can be developed further by putting uppamphlets at prominent locations like shopping malls. This would create more

awareness and encourage people to contribute their old news papers for this

noble cause.

b) Donation boxes portraying Kaliyuva Mane as an alternative school for theunderprivileged children where free education is given can be placed at various

malls in and around the city.