Sunbeam Trust, Mumbai : Monthly Activities Report for March 2007

MONTHLY ACTIVITIES REPORT – MARCH ’07                   

March has been a month of planning at all levels. Let me share in brief all the field level activities that we’ve been busy with.

I. Academics – Annual Exams

Our children appeared for the Sunbeam annual exams in March. Thanks to our teaching staff who’ve got them ready to face with confidence their forthcoming annual exams in the respective formal schools.(See Attachment 2– quantitative and  qualitative report on Academics.)

II. Outreach ’07 – ’08

(a) Bandra Center

Bandra being one of the two major potential long term education centers of Sunbeam, we’ve planned to not only carry on with the 125 child beneficiaries enrolled with us in Feb. ’07 but have plans to take on 4 more batches of students i.e. 100+ kids. These will be primary section children from the slums in the vicinity of the Bandra center. This would bring the total outreach to 450-470 children by Sept. ’07.

(b) Worli Center

We have an approx. 518 children currently at the Worli center. It’s a fairly settled center and we’ve no plans for expansion / increasing our outreach for the next year or two.

(c) Chandanwadi Center

This is a part-time education center – 9 a.m to 12 noon. Here our outreach will continue to be limited to approx 100+ children or so from the Chandanwadi Marathi medium school.

(d) Bhuleshwar Center

This is one center where our outreach has come down by 50% and the total beneficiaries are just about 77 as of now. This is so because most of the street children attending our classes have either moved back to the villages or shifted to the suburbs of Mumbai. From the existing batches of students as well, many more are likely to settle down in the villages soon. Hence, this part-time center from 9 a.m. to 12 noon may close down by the end of the next academic year. Of course, there will be 30+ children or so who may continue to be with us. But those will be enrolled into private coaching classes as that would work out to be more cost effective, rather than run a full-fledged center that would have entailed heavy unavoidable costs of rooms on rent and B.Ed. / D.Ed. trained teachers – not 1 but 3 – to take care of the 6 small batches of 6 to 8 students per batchfrom the 2^nd to 7^th stds., with each batch requiring special undivided attention of a teacher.

III. Space for Education Centers

(a) Unfortunately, our BMC room renewal for ’07 –’08 has been rejected on the grounds that all NGOs operating from that school have to vacate their premises in order to make way for the public school coming up over there. However, we’ve managed to locate and take on lease 3 private rooms at a few minutes walking distance from the BMC schools that our children attend. We’re on the lookout for 1 more room on rent to accommodate the new batches of children that we’re planning to take on at Bandra.

(b) Worli space will continue as before i.e. 2  rooms at the Ambedkar school and 7 rooms in the BDD chawls that are all rental premises.

(c) Chandanwadi & Bhuleshwar too continue as before. In 07-08, hopefully if the renewal of our rooms in BMC schools happens, the classes will carry on as before. 

IV. Staff Recruitment

(a) Education Managers

As our current Education Head at Worli is moving to the States, and the one at Chandanwadi / Bandra is being promoted to the post of COO (Chief Operations Officer) to be in charge of all the centers, we’re looking out for individuals who’d be interested in heading Education at the Worli and Bandra centers.

(b) Teachers

(i) Our recruitment process for English teachers has already begun.

(ii) As for the vernacular medium B.Ed. / D.Ed. Teachers who will take care of our 1^st to 8^th std batches, we’ll be contacting B.Ed. / D.Ed. institutes across Mumbai in the month of May.

(iii)  We are proud to share with you that from our existing teachers we’ve promoted 2 of our B.Sc. B.Ed. (Maths/Science) teachers to take care of our 9^th std. & SSC batches.  

V. Staff Allocation Plan

(a) The above plan is in place, keeping in mind each teacher’s potential, preferences of work location, category of children, their time commitment, and so on.

(b) Education center-wise, teacher-wise daily timetable / syllabus plan is in place.

VI. Tie-ups with Private Coaching Classes

(a) As before, Aman Classes have offered to take our entire batch of Hindi medium 9^th std. students free of cost and SSC Hindi medium students (limited to Worli) at 30% concession in their yearly fees.

(b) We’re on the lookout for good Private Coaching Classes for our HSC students who will be appearing for the XII std. Board exams in March ’08.

VII. Staff Capacity Building

(a) In-house trainings and workshops at different levels have been planned out for all teaching staff for the month of April.

(b) The Community Workers have successfully completed their half year long Para-Professional Training at Nirmala Niketan (a course scheduled over weekends).

(c) The Functional Heads participated in specific trainings / workshops specifically meant for their respective functions – e.g. workshop on Resource Mobilization organized by SOSVA was attended by the Resource Generation Manager, Tally Package Training was arranged for the Accountant, etc

VIII. Year ending Resource Generation to take care of the next year’s part expenses.

Email – mailto:sunbeamtrust@hotmail.com?cc=info@karmayog.com