We believe in learning by doing. All our initiatives are thoughtfully designed so that it helps in the holistic development of our children. These are the 6 initiatives that help our children expand their horizon beyond the textbook –
UDAAN
Udaan is a Career Counseling Initiative to expose our children to the career options they can pursue in the future. The initiative covers the following:
- Pathshala & Pathbhvan children are given an overview of career options, they go through psychometric testing and are counseled along with their mentors in specific career option areas individually. This has also helped select their primary subjects in 11th and 12th grades
- One immediate improvement we see is, the focus on the future. They have got a glimpse of the possibilities and are taking their studies very seriously.
- There are quarterly checkpoints with the mentors and experts at Career Naksha, the professional Career Counseling services company we’ve parternered with.
- The children are doing well with the choice of subjects they have made.
- We completed counseling 50+ Pathshala & Pathbhavan children, combined.
UDYAM
Udyam is our Vocational Training program for Class 8 and above students of Pathshala and Pathbhavan. These are some glimpses from the jewellery making session on September 4, 2023 at our Pathbhavan location. The following vocational training courses are covered under this
- Beautician & Salon Treatment
- Jewellery Making
- Stitching & Sewing
- Graphic Designing
- Pottery
- Nursing
- Weaving
- Garage Mechanics
UNNATI
Unnati, a new initiative encouraging entrepreneurship in children! The initiative launched on March 20, 2024 in Pathshala and our children had already decided on their products and were selling it to the villagers of Lasundra as an experiment and also preparing for a pitch for their businesses.
The children went through an investment round on March 20 where they presented their ideas to prospective investors. The children had to answer questions on not only profit and losses but detailed breakdown of cost like labor, indirect costs like using water from the Hostel, paying rent to the hostel for utensils and transportation, considering environment impact of using a choolah, not using newspaper due to lead in the ink, viability of the business etc.
It was a reality check for our children to be exposed to the outside world and understanding the pressures of running a business and expectations that external parties have when investing in their businesses.
Currently our children are selling the following products every evening in the nearby villages –
- Panipuri
- Jhal Muri
- Papdi no Lot
- Ghugni
- Gola
- Handmade natural Soap
- Hand weaved mats from waste cloth
UDUKKU
Srotoshwini is fundamentally a cultural group, with the experience of 16 years of stage shows and has diversified its activities towards social development since the last ten years. The name of Pathshala’s cultural troupe is UDUKKU.
UDUKKU’s debut performance of ‘Goopi Gawayia Bagha Bajaiya’, was staged on 5th Nov 23 in one of the well-known auditoriums of Vadodara. And immediately we were invited by Rotary Club of Vadodara to perform at their fundraising event. The shows both the times were well appreciated. We invited Ms.Shilpa Ranade, children’s filmmaker and maker of ‘Goopi Gawayia Bagha Bajaiya’ animated film and Mr Narayan Parsuraam, music director of the same film for the shows. Both of them appreciated the performance of the children a lot.
Goopi Gawayia Bagha Bajaiya, is originally written by Upendra Kishore Roy Chaudhury, grand father of stalwart Satyajit Ray. And this was filmed by Ray in Bengali. Later, the story was translated in Hindi by Gulzaar and the Hindi version was filmed by Shilpa Ranade and team in animated form.
Our second show staged was Jungle Book in Sir Sayaji Nagar Gruh on October 18, 2024. We had a house-full event with a lot of appreciation from the audience.
We at UDUKKU, are always looking for the opportunity to perform at various places around the country.
URJA
Pathshala Children’s Gaam Pathshala Project.
Whatever we gather, we give back as much as possible.
A few children from the remote corners of the Lasundra village come to Pathshala campus every Sunday for reading our library books. These are children who don’t go to school. The goal is to motivate them on their learning journey. Our children help with mentoring them and understanding the stories in the books.
UJAGAR
The Sustainability initiative under Pathshala; a commitment to do our part to make environment friendly decisions in our everyday lives. When constructing the hostel we made sure to make sustainable decisions right from the planning stage. Some of the sustainable features of our campus are –
- The Sewage Treatment Plant: we use the treated water in our garden.
- Solar Panels: we use them for 80% of our electricity needs.
- Solar Water Heater
- Solar Cooker for all our cooking needs, especially during the winter when the direction of the sun is perfect for it.
- Rainwater harvesting: water table replenishing
- Organic Farming: we have a patch where we grow vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage, tomatoes, chilli, coriander, spinach and methi. While it doesn’t meet all our grocery needs but it teaches our children more sustainable farming practices and is the source for our mid morning snacks in our tea stall on Sundays.
- Pathshala’s self motivated Sustainable Development Group has been collecting plastics from the campus and the adjacent Lasundra village. We are now part of the Sustainability Project Group initiated by Vadodara Marathon. We send the dry plastics to ‘Kachde Se Azadi’ foundation for recycling
