Educational Initiatives

New initiatives for making quality education accessible to all

Charity begins at home. Children of lower level employees of Manipal University are being given special tuitions in the sciences, Mathematics and English from Class 9 onwards so that they score better marks in Class 10. They are being further trained for cracking the various entrance exams for admission to professional courses in their XI and XII. The programme was started in 2009-10 and the results have been encouraging. This year 37 students have enrolled for the programme. This is a partnership programme between Manipal Foundation, Manipal University, the parents and the tutorials.

Manipal foundation has launched the MATCHLESS (Manipal Tuitions for Children Less privileged) programme in Bangalore. 31 students of Class 9 from Government Secondary School at Immadihalli and Ujual near Whitefield have been taken under our wings under this programme to be coached in Maths, Sciences and English after their normal school hours. The classes are being conducted in the Immadihalli School premises. Samridhdhi Trust has been very supportive and have liaised with the school authorities, conducted assessment tests to shortlist students for this programme and are also regularly monitoring the progress of the children. Our delivery partners for this programme are Edurite Tutorials who have been kind enough to do this programme “at cost”.

It has been heartening for all of us that the children have shown remarkable improvement because of this extra coaching. Each child has got an increase of 20- 40% marks in the core subjects ! They are now more confident. They are showing interest in coming to school and the attendance is very good. Some more children are showing interest to enroll for the programme. One very interesting development is that the children are now attempting to converse in English.

Manipal Foundation is providing funding support to two schools being run by Samridhdhi Foundation at Brookefields and Tubarahalli areas of Bangalore. These schools are a unique effort to educate children of migrant labourers who come in search of livelihood to Bangalore from various states of India. The children cannot be admitted into the Government run schools because they cannot understand Kannada. These children are being given coaching in English medium with Hindi and their own mother tongue also being taught as additional languages. Once they reach a level of competence, they are successfully admitted to regular CBSE English medium schools in age appropriate classes.These children need continued hand holding even after enrolment to regular school. Samridhdhi Trust supports them through after school tuitions. Manipal Foundation partners this effort by supporting the operational costs like salaries of teachers.

The shacks where the families live

It is the Foundation’s aim to give every child a fair chance in life. This, it is believed, can be achieved only through education.

• As a first step in this direction, Manipal Foundation has adopted ten schools in the tribal areas. In these schools, classes exist only till the 3rd standard. During 2010-11 23 have added 14 more schools to this list in partnership with two other corporate houses – Weir India with whom we are supporting 10 schools in Hubli – Dandeli area and Premium Ferro alloys with whom 4 schools are being sponsored in Wayanad District Kerala.

The total number of such schools supported by Manipal Foundation along with a host of partners stands at 250 as at the end of August 2011. More than 6200 children get basic literacy through this effort.

Students of school with the teachers, volunteers and CEO of Manipal Foundation	An ekal class in progress

Manipal Foundation has entered into strategic partnership with Suyam Charitable Trust, Chennai who are running a school at Palavedu Pettai village near Avadi for children coming from the most backward and abused part of society. Manipal foundation has committed to fund a major part of the expenses for a period of 3 years till 2013. More than 380 children are studying in that school called “Siragu Montessori School”.

Students enjoying their childhood 1	students in hand on science lab

Manipal Foundation supports running of crèche cum learning center run by Sampark at Bellandur. 60 children of construction labourers spend their day in the secure environment of the center. The older children learn basics of reading, writing and arithmetic and the tiny tots are taken care of by Ayah. This way the older children are saved from the responsibility of baby sitting and can study. 13 children have already been put into mainstream Govt schools.

Learning from their teacher at Bellandur	Children in rapt attention in the evening tuition class at Noida

Vidya and Child is a project of the Jayaprakash Narayan Trust, where children from slums are given basic education and then put into mainstream schools. After this they are continuously supported by after school coaching till they need it. Manipal Foundation has started supporting the after school support programme for 30 students of Class 7 at the center in Noida.

IIMPACT, a social initiative conceived and executed by a batch of Alumni of IIM Ahmedabad, has been doing remarkable work towards empowerment of the girl child by giving them primary education in various parts of India. It is their experience that after being initiated into schooling, the children and their parents become aware of the benefits of education and they invariably continue their schooling by joining mainstream schools from Class 6. Manipal Foundation is supporting them in running a few centers in Gajapathi district of Orissa.

Learning centers in Orissa, Gajapati district

Manipal foundation has donated more than 150 used, refurbished laptops to the educational initiatives supported by us. The beneficiaries were very happy with the laptops because they were ready to use – with Windows Xp operating system and MS Office software installed in the systems.
Manipal Foundation reaches out to support the rehabilitation of the mentally challenged.
Sri Vaishnavi Special Educational Academy is running a school cum rehabilitation center for the mentally challenged children of Harohalli village, off Kanakapura Road. Children from 6yrs to 20 yrs are being looked after at the special school between 9.30 in the morning and 4 in the evening. Each child is given training on various skills according the severity of retardation. On 3rd August, 2011, Manipal Foundation has entered into an agreement to support the school for five years to meet the operational expenses.