BEING HUMAN FOUNDATION

Akshara High School
Being Human - The Salman Khan Foundation has been supporting Akshara High School since June 2012. Akshara High School is a not-for-profit neighbourhood school located in the western suburbs of Mumbai.
Akshara High School (ICSE Board) began in 2007 with the concept of creating a friendly environment for the education of children in the vicinity of their homes. Over the past years they have successfully developed as a ‘Neighborhood School’ in Kandivili, Mumbai. The school’s motto is to focus on social inclusion for educational and economic growth and to level inequalities ingrained due to gender, caste, economic and religious discrimination. To make education accessible to people from middle and lower economic strata, the fee structure at the school has been kept at a basic minimum.
Being Human - The Salman Khan Foundation supports the education of over 200 children studying in Akshara High School

Art at Akshara
This year Being Human - The Salman Khan Foundation is supporting the Art programme at Akshara High School. The programme is conducted under the guidance of artists and aims to help children become confident and progressive thinkers through a visual arts curriculum and teacher training programme.
To enhance the experience and give the children the ideal environment to learn art and Art Lab has been built in Akshara High School by Being Human - The Salman Khan Foundation.

Agastya at Akshara
With an aim to spark curiosity, nurture creativity and build confidence among economically disadvantaged children, Akshara High School in collaboration with the renowned Agastya Foundation has set up a unique Science Centre. This is the first of its kind Science Centre in the city of Mumbai. Children will get to perform experiments, learn to make simple models with easily available low-cost materials and participate in team-based projects. Agastya at Akshara will be open to all children from State Board schools and aims to reach 4000 children in its first year. Being Human - The Salman Khan Foundation is supporting Agastya at Akshara since its inception in October 2017.
aksharaschool.org

ASEEMA

Being Human has been associated with Aseema since June 2011. Aseema is a Mumbai based not-for-profit organization that provides holistic and relevant education to Mumbai’s most neglected children – children living on the streets, or in slums and in inhuman conditions. In partnership with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), they have taken on three municipal schools where children receive high quality education.

Being Human – The Salman Khan Foundation supports the secondary sections of two of their schools in Mumbai (that’s over 300 children in all).

aseema.org

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE
CENTERS, MAHARASHTRA

In August 2014, Being Human - The Salman Khan Foundation started educational resource centres in local Zilla Parishad primary schools to provide basic aids in Arithmetic,English, Marathi, Health & Social awareness to children from the local community, from grades one to four. Improved skills give them access to better learning tools which are otherwise available mostly to urban students. In the academic year 2016-2017 , 310 children from the local community have benefited from these classes. Currently we are running centres in Waje, Cherivali, Dhamini, Dehrang, Shivansai, Umbroli and Gadeshwar.

MAHARASHTRA PRABODHAN
SEVA MANDAL (MPSM)

MPSM is a voluntary organization engaging in educational and developmental action for the upliftment of tribal and farming communities in Maharashtra since the last fifty years. Being Human supports MPSM’s arithmetic project which would provide skills in basic mathematics to four thousand children from these tribal communities between the age of five and twelve years living in hilly and remote areas of rural Maharashtra, who attend one of the 200 Learning Centers that use the educational supports of MPSM’s educational wing, in the districts of Nashik, Thane, Raigad, Dhule and Nandurbar.

Computer program
Being Human foundation supports the computer program at Maharashtra Prabodhan Seva Mandal, Nashik. In the campus there is hostel built for young tribal students who are either students in the neighboring colleges or are preparing for public competitive exams. Per batch around 180 students are part of this program, all belonging to the scheduled Tribe communities in villages spread over 6 talukas of Palghar, Nandurbar, Dhule, and Nashik districts the tribal students who have no access to information technology and other supports for learning are helped at this facility.

Educational Support Program for Adivasi Primary Learners

MPSM in association with Being Human Foundation supports over 1500 primary children in 65Centers in Nashik and Palghar District, Maharashtra. These classes help the children in learning the basics of language, math, health, art and social perspectives. Teachers use a mix of audio-visual Programs, songs, charts etc. to make learning more interactive. In addition to this, they work in the Village communities with development programs on organic farming & women’s health.

The Adivasi children belong to basically 5 clans like Katkari, Mahadev Koli, Wari, Thakur and Kokana. Each clan has its own approach to educational systems based on its socio-economic Situation.

The educational interventions based on regular supervision and monitoring by experienced project Staff ensure that these socio-economic factors are continually assessed and suitable course alterations made so that the classes and their linked activities of development continue to make an Impact on the learning of Adivasi children and the wider awareness building on education and Development of their communities.
www.mpsm.in

The English Learning and Digital Language program.

In the area of education, our focus with M.P.S.M is on strengthening primary education and language skills. The curriculum is specially designed to be relevant in the rural context. The teaching-learning materials attempt to make teaching-learning interactive, participatory and enjoyable. The teaching-learning materials include videos; large-size picture charts printed on durable flex material; teachers’ handbooks, flip charts and games. These materials are used not only with children in the village-level Learning Centres but also as part of continuing education for farmers and women’s groups.

Having created a foundation for English Teaching-Learning, we have now built on it and taken it to the next level. We have scripted, designed and produced a set of 19 animated video capsules along with a guide for facilitators. The systematic use of these educational materials will help meet the following objectives: introduce English sentences – speaking and writing; extend the learners’ English vocabulary – speaking and reading and enable the learners’ to use basic English in everyday life. Each of the 19 video capsules will be about 5 minutes in duration and will have simple 2-D animation with a voice-over.

500 DVD copies of the video capsules are produced and distributed to the village-level Learning Centres in 9 districts of Maharashtra. In this way thousands of children will benefit from these teaching-learning materials. In addition, the materials will also be shared with a network of primary schools and children’s boarding’s in the 9 districts.

KORKU TRIBAL LEARNING
PROJECT

Like all tribal in India the Korku tribals suffer poverty, lack of education, means for livelihood, social marginalization and other handicaps that reduce their living conditions to mere subsistence levels at great cost to the wellbeing they as human beings are entitled to.

The key to their development lies in education beginning with their children. education at higher levels may or may not be accessible. But primary levels of education are crucial to build their lives dignity, developing their communication skills, empowering them to access further skills and higher levels of learning.

Hence this project aims at strengthening the process of primary education which the government provides through zila parishad schools but which needs qualitative inputs in order that the Korku learner optimally benefits from the educational processes.

Through the use of attractive charts developed for a rural and more so tribal context the contents of learning are made more familiar and intelligible to the tribal child. This charts cover keys syllabus: viz. English, Marathi and Math’s basics along with Health and Social Education.

The key insight into this supplementary educational support is to give Korku child an opportunity to learn and thus grow in confidence that such learning is possible at subsequent stages of its growth.

The learning of the Korku child is of great significance to the family, the community and the clan. When the child learns the family looks at this breakthrough as an assertion of the worth of tribal culture, capacity for growth, confidence in the future. So when the Korku child learns Korku tribal society develops an identity of greater self-confidence, hope in the tribal capacity to cope with a changing world with all its diversity. There is strengthening of the human spirit to be oneself and to relate to other human beings without a sense of inferiority or of prejudice from ignorance.

We see education as the prime process of moving ahead

THEATRE AND DRAMA
INITIATIVE

Being Human has supported TIFLI International Festival of Theatre for Children and Young Audiences in 2016, Which hosted by ASSITEJ India in association with Akshara Foundation of Arts and Learning. Featuring 6 plays from France, Mexico and India, with total 17 shows and 9 workshops, this festival was witnessed by nearly 4000 children from NGOs and schools, teachers, volunteers and their families. The plays enthralled the children along with their accompanying adults. A first of its kind in Mumbai, TIFLI saw participation from 22 NGOs and 15 schools.

ARTS FOR ALL

This initiative comes from the Akshara Foundation for Arts and Learning‘s core cause to Bring the arts to children who are not otherwise exposed to the same.

At the Theatre, one of the many projects under this title is meant to create a space for learning through the experience of the theatre. The project is simple, bring children to the theatre! We also facilitate pre watching and post watching workshop to orient child to the theatre, as often they have not seen a play. This is to help open their eyes to look for a meaning, to be open to experience and spark their own imagination that the theatre helps fuel. In the post play workshop, we open up dialogues around individual perspective, how we look at things differently, how we feel differently and how we experience a moment as a community while in theatre.

The objective is an experience with and through the arts, learning is embedded in the experience itself. Art is not a vehicle to learn about worldly things, ours is an effort to give value to the form, to the art, to the experience of it. The learning is from what that experience does to mind, body and senses.

We are also working on curating children’s play at venues across the city, our calendar will run through 2017-18. Our dream is to have no specific season of children’s theatre this may even encourage theatre companies to think alike and perhaps even convert more players to making works for children.

In the future, Arts for All will also bring community libraries, immersive experience with books, pottery and visual art engagements for children.

BEING BAJRANGI

Inspired by the film ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’, Being Bajrangi was project in association with Rann Neeti Strategic Consultants, to identify lost children in Mumbai and reconnect them with their families. Every day, thousands of children go missing in different parts of India. Some runway from home in search of better life, others are sent to work, and many just lose their way and are separated from their parents. The conditions of these children once they leave their home is miserable. They are suddenly all alone, away from familiar sights and sounds of their home towns. They are vulnerable to abuse and are more often than not mistreated and exploited. Circumstances harden them and its not long before many lose their innocence and tread on dangerous paths. For those who end up in a new city or state the condition is even worse as they have no idea of the language and have no one to approach for help. Several organisations in Mumbai work hard everyday to identify these children at railway stations and public places in an effort to provide them with some basic security and protection. These children are then produced before the child welfare committees to search for NGO’s that are able to offer them shelter, food and some cases education. The team behind the Being Bajrangi initiative worked closely with some of the institutions involved in child welfare, to trace the families of some of these missing children. Funding was provided to families from across the country who came to Mumbai so that these children could be reunited with their parents and relatives. Today, 51 children have been reunited with their families and are now enrolled in schools and other projects in their home towns

TUBELIGHT PROJECT

The 'Tubelight Project' Is a Joint initiative between the Being Human Foundation, TRRAIN and Rann Neeti Strategic Consultants in an effort to empower youth With disabilities, With Skill training centres set up in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Delhi, the Project is on its way to having a pan India impact. The Project partners Are focussed on training differently abled youth to be employable in the retail Sector. With a 100% placement success from our Karnataka and Delhi batch, the Project will soon take off in other states as well. The 60 day training programme Enables participants to obtain government certification based on which job Interviews are lined up and participants are absorbed into roles matching their Interests and Abilities in retail. Thought the Tube light Project. We hope to touch The lives of those young adults who had given up the hope of ever being Financially independent. We hope to instil confidence in our participants and Empower them to have a brighter and better future.