Nagpur Today Feature. As those in the Power are contemplating the action plan to see the Right to Education followed in letter and spirit by the private schools, there are some who are working for the concerned cause in different manner. These people are adding their bit to Make a Difference, in words and deeds. Currently, around 1500 MAD volunteers teach almost 4500 children all over the 23 cities. Make A difference is in existence since 2006. MAD, Nagpur chapter is working since 2008 and presently helps in the English education of about 250 kids from 5 shelter homes with the help of 120 active volunteers. The organization has centers located in various areas such as Sadar, Zaripatka, Itwari, Sitabuldi and Godhni. Make a difference works for children at risk. In Nagpur, it is currently working on two projects – English Project and the Placements Project. Through its English Project, the organization strives to propagate knowledge of English to underprivileged children. MAD stresses the importance of English because it knows the language’s value. Most children, who do not come from English medium schools, face themselves with the daunting task of switching to books in the English language suddenly and their dreams and aspirations are thwarted. The Placements project aims at giving the children exposure to all the possible career options. Portray about any particular field they can carve a professional niche in. The ace characteristics of this organization are open door policy, the judicious student-teacher ratio, 2×2 model wherein 4 teachers are allotted to a set of 8-10 kids, 2 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. It preaches books from the Cambridge University Press. City President, MAD Rijuta Joshi handles the whole city team and is the point of contact between the National Team and the City Team where as the operations are looked in by Vaishnavi Mahurkar. English Project is headed by Anuja Vijayvargiya and Rashmi Sharma, who are responsible for ensuring that all volunteers who teach go through all the mandatory trainings – syllabus training, teacher training and year-long workshops. Abhijit Mattegunta heads Placements Project in Nagpur. He helps the MAD children design their future by exposing them to a variety of careers and opportunities by planning and implementing career awareness programs, field visits, and other activities. Public Relations Executive Sneheel Biswal is proactive at making good PR campaigns for not just visibility of MAD but also to aid other verticals like HR and CR. Finance Comptroller Pranay Patil ensures that all the money collected in the city is accounted for properly and receipts issued to donors. Human Resources Executive Raunak Ramteke takes care for recruiting quality volunteers as per city requirement. For being the part of the noble cause visit www.makeadiff.in or email at placements.nagpur@makeadiff.in , president.nagpur@makeadiff.in. Can also call at 9028419864, 9028513638. |
“Make A Difference (MAD) is basically a youth platform where students from colleges as well as working professionals come together for common cause that is creating positive atmosphere for children at risk i.e. children who come from underprivileged background, staying in hostels or schools or orphanages if they are orphans, The idea of MAD is to make them more employable and also to give them a kind of mentorship and support which would help them to become active part of the society in the future.” “Basically we are looking into Kingbridge University Press Books which are designed to cater to the children whose mother tongue is not English. It is very interactive and exciting set of books. They are graded into five levels. Before we begin, we take an initial test to categorize the students on how they perform.” “We have a open door policy. We conduct special recruitment drive. It’s a two day presentation, where in first day we call the students, register them and have 45 minutes presentation about MAD and also. the group discussion. On second day we call the volunteers for the personal interview and look for their English speaking skills and the way they put forward their points.” “I was doing my Engineering and in second year I thought am wasting my time and did not do anything good with the time. I came to know about MAD and learnt so many things about which I had no idea earlier. Now am happy to help” “We have innovative way to approach to generate funds. We are trying to attain self attainability. We give an opportunity to the people to help support the cause by purchasing specially designed Green T-Shirts. We do conventional things like accepting donations, conducting events like drawing competition. |
