Mantra4Change: The journey of 2015

Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity, but in doing it. - Greg Anderson

At MANTRA, our journey during this last one year has been truly magical. 

Our associations and partnerships have grown tremendously. As we reflect, we feel elated that through our initiative STEP (School Transformation and Empowerment Project), we have been able to put our partner schools on a path to provide quality education to our children.

From implementing STEP in three partner schools, we are currently in partnership with nine under-resourced schools, which are working with a singular vision of providing education to children coming from neighbouring under-privileged communities.

One major component of STEP is ongoing, in-service professional development for teachers. Today, we are part of a 230 members' strong teacher community. As we work together, we keep learning from each other and keep sharing the best practices.

Across our 9 partner schools, there are approx. 7100 students who are being positively affected by the improved quality of teaching in schools.

As we move to greater number of schools, our own team at MANTRA is growing too. From a two-member on-field team in Jan 2015, today as the year comes to an end, Mantra4Change has an amazing team of seven mavericks, who are passionately working towards the vision of providing high-quality education to children, no matter what background do they come from.

We thank all our amazing supporters and awesome volunteers, who have joined us in this amazing and beautiful journey. Lets weave an even more beautiful and inspiring story together in the new year..! 

Filling the world with hope..!

“The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.”, said Mr Barack Obama. 

Mitisha Dodderi and Prakhar Saxena are two such amazing individuals, who are filling the world with hope in their own way. Both of them are currently in the third year of their engineering and when they are not busy decoding the mysteries of Computer Science, they teach Mathematics to the students of grade 10th at one of our partner schools.

Mitisha, who wants to take up teaching as a profession, writes, "I love helping people and sharing my knowledge; and I often help out my friends or cousins with their curriculum. Since, I had a liking to teaching and was considering teaching as a profession I thought volunteering to teach would be a wonderful start."   

She adds,"My journey with Mantra4Change has been incredible. It has been a delight to teach math to the 10th grade students. Every day that I spend with these amazing students has been imprinted in my mind. The students have been extremely co-operative and welcoming. Although a talkative lot, they are bright and eager to learn. Teaching them is something I to look forward to every single day. This opportunity has made my will stronger to take up teaching as a profession."

Prakhar is a gaming enthusiast and loves to spend his time programming on computers. Sharing his experience of being a teacher to grade 10th students, he smilingly says, "The voyage has been a roller coaster ride for me. Although, I have work experience in the technical field, I was a newbie in the teaching field before I grabbed onto the wonderful opportunity provided by Mantra4Change. Teaching maths to these students has been an adventure, which every person must look forward to and one must experience the joy in sharing knowledge at least once before dying. Bill Nye, an American scientist, aptly quoted, 'Everyone you will ever meet knows something that you don't'. So, not only sharing knowledge, but gaining knowledge from the 10th graders also held much importance while volunteering for such an amazing opportunity. It feels like I am crafting the future of the young India in some sense."

Its said that Volunteers are not paid - not because they are worthless, but because they are priceless. Mitisha and Prakhar are two of such priceless gems of our team at Mantra4Change, who are filling the world around them with hope. We feel so privileged to have them with us. Way to go, guys..!