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..!

Thanks for supporting our Run2Liberate

Thank you all for your overwhelming support to our crowd-source fundraising campaign, Run2Liberate. We are glad to share that with the help of over 31 amazing supporters like you, we were able to raise approx. INR 1,50,000. It always fills our heart with deep gratitude and enthusiasm to have your support.

On October 18th 2015, Team MANTRA participated in the Bengaluru Marathon to spread awareness towards the cause of quality education for children from under-privileged communities. We also requested our supporters to help us raise funds to support our Target program - the pre-service, community-based teacher training program. The campaign was meant to support these amazing youngsters from community who have taken the responsibility to change the face of education in their neighborhood.

Related posts: 

Every morning, I wake up with a purpose..!  

Bengaluru Marathon 2015 and MANTRA's Run2Liberate

Every morning, I wake up with a purpose..!

I am Azra Bano and I teach grade 4 students in a Government school. I am glad to share some amazing moments of my life.

I had finished my secondary school in 2011 and joined the Pre-university College to pursue Science. I did well in my PU College. But I was not allowed to study further. In the year 2014, I had to stay at home, looking after my parents. That was also a very good experience of my life, but soon I realized that I wanted to achieve more in my life. I used to see girls around my house, who were never given a chance to go to school. I used to feel sad for them because I knew what they were missing in life.

I wanted to share the knowledge that I had got throughout my years at college and school, but did not know where to start. Then one fine morning, one of my friends told me about the teacher training program by Mantra at a Government school in our community. Immediately, I went there and enquired about the program. I submitted my application and after interview, I was selected. I was so happy. It felt like my dream was about to come true.

Today, after 6 months, I spend my time with 25 amazing students from grade 4. I am their class teacher. I have learnt so much in these past months. Training sessions were fantastic and even today, they are fun. I maintain my logbook to record my lesson plans. I have learnt interesting ways to teach English and Maths. I conduct many fun activities in my class to teach the subjects. Actually I am supposed to spend my time teaching the kids, but the fact is I am also learning so much from them. I am enjoying every moment and want to remain in such an environment forever. My life has become beautiful and every morning, I wake up with a purpose- a purpose to help my students learn better. 

The post has been submitted by Ms. Azra Bano, one of the teachers from our pre-service, community-based teacher training program.

..when those beautiful smiles appeared all over..!

At MANTRA, we understand that education and health cannot be seen in isolation. Health education is an integral part of education. And hence, we conduct regular awareness sessions for our school children on various preventive healthcare topics, like hygiene, sanitation, how to prevent malaria & dengue etc. This also helps us build great rapport with our students.

After one of such sessions, Shalini, a 12 year old girl from grade 7th at one of our partner Govt schools came to us and hesitantly, asked us some questions around menstruation. She had got her first 'period' a week back and her mind was full of confusing questions. Afraid to ask her mother at home, she had only discussed this with one of her elder cousin sisters, who herself did not have answers to all questions. We knew we had to address this.

So, we contacted Aunna at Pasand. 

They have a well-defined program for students to 'understand puberty and personal hygiene, examine gender norms and to be safe and happy on their journey through adolescence'. She readily agreed to conduct the 3-day workshop for our children at the school. 

Students loved the session. There were so many things they were being told for the first time. They felt relaxed after knowing that menstruation was a normal occurrence for any girl/woman and that they were not facing an unknown. The activities during the workshop was fun-filled. Gradually the girls started finding it less awkward and less uncomfortable to talk openly with the facilitator. Questions started pouring in. 

We repeatedly tell our students it is important to understand what is happening and why is it happening; More importantly, they should call out for help whenever they need it. Ignorance is definitely not bliss under such circumstances. Knowledge gives confidence and confidence is indispensable to one's life. As our girls shed their veils of embarrassment, they became more candid and gradually, the room was filled with those beautiful smiles all over again. 

Bengaluru Marathon 2015 and MANTRA's Run2Liberate

18 Oct 2015:

It was a beautiful Sunday morning and the City of Bengaluru woke up to thousands of running enthusiasts participating in the Bengaluru Marathon 2015. People have different reasons to run at such events; some run for pleasure, some run to test their fitness etc. At MANTRA, we ran for the cause of quality education reaching all those amazing and awesome students, studying in under-resourced, low-fee schools. We had our 'Run2Liberate'*.

Two members of team MANTRA participated in the Half Marathon (21 KMs) to spread awareness about the issue of quality education for the less-privileged and to raise funds for our Target (Pre-service community teacher training) program. We understand that what started as a program to create a pool of effective teachers for our students in the under-privileged community had today turned into a skill-building and empowering experience for the (educated) youth in the community. And hence, we took it upon ourselves to raise the required resources and to continue this program for many more batches of community teachers.

We reached out to our supporters, friends and family to contribute to this cause. And today we stand overwhelmed with their support..! Thanks to our awesome supporters whose faith in us has and would always continue to encourage us to test & expand our limits, whether physical or intellectual.

* Run2Liberate: MANTRA's crowd-source fundraising campaign to support its pre-service community teacher training program

Sowparnika Foundation partners with MANTRA

"Creating a better world requires teamwork, partnerships, and collaboration, as we need an entire army of companies to work together to build a better world within the next few decades. This means organizations must embrace the benefits of cooperating with one another." - Simon Mainwaring

At MANTRA, we are glad to announce that Sowparnika Foundation, headed by Mr. and Mrs. S.D. Shibulal, has partnered with us. Under this partnership, we will be implementing STEP (School Transformation and Empowerment Project) - our key initiative, in ten low-fee schools in Bangalore, serving children from the under-privileged sections of our society over next two years.

Mr. and Mrs. Shibulal's love for children and the need to give back to society has found fruition in a number of charitable endeavours, like the Advaith Foundation, the Samhita Academy, Vidyadhan etc. Born out of the conviction that quality education is the cornerstone of all developmental progress in society, Sowparnika Foundation was formed to promote philanthropic exercises in the field of education and research. 

STEP is MANTRA's key initiative to improve the quality of education in under-resourced schools. To know more about STEP, please click here.