All the good things have to come to an end, they say. I believe they start but never end. When we started SPOORTHI, We were a bunch of engineering lads hoping to be the change we wanted to see. Every journey begins with small steps. We managed to conduct few sessions of computer basics and basics of English grammar in the one year. We had limited resources, limited number of volunteers, and limited amount of time. But, we had something that kept us marching forward, BELIEF! That we can inspire others to take a step and make them to think of doing their little for the country.  With that hope, we kept working.

On February 24, 2013, I came across an NGO called Akanksha which had same motives as us. While going through their website I ended up watching a beautiful video of one of their initiative. Recently concluded JOY OF TEACHING WEEK (JOTW) was inspired by them. Only difference being that Akanksha took school to the public; we took public to the schools.

Preparations for JOTW started in the month of September. We first decided on the schools to visit, made a schedule and posted in our blog. Then we invited public to be part of the event. Sri Lakshmi, a BCA student was the first one to approach us. Then few more people started joining hands. We approached PROJECT REACH OUT , an initiative by the students of SJCE Mysore. They played a very important role in making JOTW a success. Next in the line was Revion, a startup by the students of MIT Mysore. Owing to our resources constraint, they managed a session without projector, which earlier was promised by us. We thank both the teams for coming together with us in our little effort to inspire people.

On the first day, we visited Manasa High School and Revion team visited Metagalli High School. Next day, our team went to Banumaiah’s Girls High School. Bhavana, an M.Sc student, did science experiments to increase the curiosity of the students and later taught Origami, paper folding art. Ashwin, a student of MIT Mysore, explained about the hardware part of a computer. On the third day, PROJECT REACH OUT joined the event. They visited Metagalli High School with their team. India’s freedom struggle, photography, inspirational stories, mathematics, English, computer were covered in their session.

9^th November, Our team went to Yeliyuru, a village near Mandya and took classes for the High school students. It was an amazing experience to interact with the students as it was the first time we were visiting a school outside Mysore. Moving on to fifth day, our team visited Banumaiah’s Boys High School. We concluded our event at Paduvarahalli School along with, PROJECT REACH OUT.

During the course of the event, live update on Facebook and twitter were carried out by the volunteers, which got a good response from the people all over the Globe.

It would be very unfair if I don’t mention the actual people behind the event’s success. Heart felt congratulations to Akash, Sachin, Sahana, Sowjanya, Apeksha, Shreyas, Chirag, Varsha, Pooja, Sudarshan and Supriya. Special thanks to PROJECT REACH OUT, Revion and Prof. KrishneGowda, Secretary, MET, Mysore.

6 days 

7 schools 
25 classes 60 volunteers 1000 students1 mission: Inspiring the Future.

The Joy of Teaching Week Inspired tens of people to teach, hundreds of students to learn better and thousands of people to believe that Yes, education can make a difference in shaping our country better. 

We are planning for many more things from the next academic year. If interested, get in touch with us!

Volunteers Words

"First I want to congratulate all the coordinators of spoorthi for letting me to take part in the event "joy of teaching week”. I am very glad that the students got to know about different subjects which would help them to build their career in future. So I consider myself to be lucky for being a part of it . it was a great experience . Let’s hope these kind of activities will go on in the future and wishing spoorthi and all my co-members a great success."

Chirag M.S

"Spoorthi came to existence on 12th April 2012 since then I have attended almost all the events which took place till now , but I haven't teach the kids. In JOTW I started teaching the kids about Personality Development and Career Guidance in Banumaiah’s Girls High School, Mysore. It was my 1st teaching experience. After that I took classes in Yeliyuru High school, Mandya and also in Banumaiah’s Boys High School. It was really a great experience in teaching kids and to learn something from them, had a great time with kids."

Akash V

"Had an awesome experience teaching the students of govt schools. Teaching something which was new to them. Showing them a better future. Never thought even I could do something helpful to this society. Spoorthi gave me an opportunity to make it possible. Keep up the good work..!!  I wish it continues n reaches each and every child who is in need of it."

Pooja D T

"I thank Spoorthi Foundation for organizing the Joy of Teaching Week.It really was a great experience and we sure learnt a lot more than we taught "

Roshni, SJCE, Mysore

"Thank you Spoorthi for giving me an opportunity to be a part of this wonderful event. Had a great time with the kids  keep up this good work!

Vijay Ravi

'Thanks for conducting the wonderful event. I really had a great time teaching and learning from the kids"

with regards

Varun S, SJCE, Mysore

Thank you, Spoorthi for giving us the opportunity to be an integral part of the Joy Of  eaching Week. Hope we continue to keep working together and hope that we will try to inspire as many people as possible. 

Thank you very much 

Adarsh, SJCE, Mysore

Please visit www.spoorthifoundation.org to know more about us

With Love,

Veer Santhosh

CEO

Spoorthi Foundation

My name is Sowjanya.K.R and I did my Engineering in Electronics and Communication in Maharaja Institute of Technology,India. I started my professional career as a trustee of Non - Profit Organizations (NGOs) Spoorthi Foundation. 

Reasons for choosing SPOORTHI FOUNDATION are:

-Teaching which helps me in fulfillment of contributing knowledge to the younger generation which is essential for the development of a society/culture/country etc.
- Working in an NGO regardless of the task, shows how serious you are on helping the society, in turn building my nation because NGO doesn't pay much or it's a pro bono job. 

- Usually, people with great passion to help the society works with an NGO. Thus this could be a strong point.

Our NGO has step in stamping the thoughts in building a super power India

- We used our skills in a productive way to make a difference, connect with our community and help poor children to contribute to a cause that we are caring about.
-  Accept each new experience as a chance to discover more about ourself while gaining valuable insight and knowledge. If we don't know how to do something, this is one of the best environments in which we can learn. 
- Personal development, especially in such areas as self-fulfillment, self-confidence and self-esteem often flourish in such programs. As we trained to do more tasks. We tried our best in making children more skilled and feel better about their self. .
-  We planned to make our self to be able to adapt and modify the theoretical constructs as required in order to meet my Country's needs. We fully recognized that our political, economic, and technological environments are constantly changing, and thus management needs to be able to adapt quickly and accurately to the new conditions with team prosper. 
- In fact successful improvement requires establishing a clear educational vision, seeking from new cultures, shared institutional mission, knowing and identifying areas for improvement, developing and designing strategic plans and implementing those plans for new programs in building a better nation. 

As being one of the trustees of SPOORTHI FOUNDATION, I believe my chosen profession will enable me to fulfill all of my desires to help people of my nation, who live in poority and will bring

positive changes in their way of life.

By Ayesha Iftiqhar

A few days back, I was asked to write an article emphasising the importance of education and that’s when I realised how little I know about the topic. I took a pen and a sheet of paper and sat down to write and after an hour I found myself staring at a blank sheet of paper. Disappointed with myself, I gave up. Luckily, I stumbled across an amazing article by Sam Harris- “No ordinary violence” and that’s when I read about this dauntless young girl- MALALA YOUSAFZI. Surely I was familiar with her story, but today I was drawn to learn more about her and was instantly inspired.

Malala began her fight against the ban on girl education by the Taliban at the age of 11, when she started blogging under the pseudonym Gul Makai in which she discussed life (specifically education) under the Taliban. This was later published by BBC Urdu. If her identity was ever revealed it was obvious that she would suffer grave consequences. Yet she continued to write and educate other individuals about the conditions in Pakistan and her views on promoting education for girls. She soon rose in prominence, a documentary of her life was filmed and she began giving interviews in print and on television, and she was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize. A year ago, she was shot in the head in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home in a school bus after taking an exam, as a result of her non-compliance.

But the bullet intended to kill the 15 year old girl, only made her stronger and made her realise the power of a girl with a book. She continued advocating education for children, even while she was aware that the Taliban had reiterated its intent to kill her. She later started the Malala petition, which was signed by 3 million people. She believes that- One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world.

The UN launched a petition in her name, using the slogan “I am Malala” and demanded that all children worldwide be in school by the end of 2015. The UN also knighted 12^th of July as Malala day, to which she responded that Malala day is not her day, but instead is the day of all those people who have raised their voice for their rights. She was featured as one of “The 100 Most Influential People in the World” and was nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.

Malala is now recognised as a universal face for children’s education, a winner of numerous prestigious awards and mostly as a winner of millions of hearts. She is an inspiration beyond measure and a role model who showed us all that we should never give up on a cause we believe in. But to me, she is the girl who re-educated the world about the importance and the power of education.

When the whole India comes together to celebrate the joy of giving and making sure that you give yourself entirely to those around you. Here once again we are getting an opportunity through Spoorthi to celebrate and spread the joy.

Timeline: November 6 – November 12

Schedule:

Nov 6^th: Metagalli High School

Nov 7^th: Banumaiah's Girl School

Nov 8^th: Kukkarahalli School

Nov 9^th: Yeliyuru School

Nov 11^th: Banumaiah's School

Nov 12^th:Paduvarahalli School 

Goal: 

1. Inspire kids

2. To make people realize the lives of students in govt. schools and Spoorthi’s efforts in working for a cause to give better education and encouraging people to contribute in terms of funds, time, sponsoring etc.

Who can be part of: Anyone! Everyone! We feel anyone is not worth missing the joy of seeing the spark in the kid’s eye as they learn how to draw a perfect circle for the first time or when they learnt a new game.

So, have you ever dreamt of becoming a teacher? Or given a chance, would you want to teach the kids? Here is your chance. Irrespective of your age and career, spend time with kids in schools and share what you know.

Are you a sportsman willing to spend some time with kids? Visit us, explain how that game is played, what is meant by team player, share your experience, good and hard times, inspire kids.

Are you a science enthusiast? Come and share with kids a few interesting experiments. 

Are you a doctor? Share few health tips.

Are you a Musician? Teach them a song, see the vibrancy in them.

Are you a craft maker? Teach kids the art of cutting and pasting paper. You know kids will love that.

Are you a traveler? Share your experience about places you have visited.

Mysore/Bangalore is a place where people from different parts of the world come and live. Share with kids the importance of your place/city/village, culture, festivals and what you learnt.

Have no clue on what to share? We are there to help you. Spend some time with kids, play with them. They are a bundle of love. They make you laugh, jump and run.

COME, SHARE, ENJOY, INSPIRE and BE A PART OF THE JOY OF TEACHING WEEK!

Ways to contact us for enrollment,queries or

You can email us: spoorthifoundationmysore@gmail.com

Message us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/spoorthi.ngo or RSVP here

Tweet to us @spoorthi_ngo

Website: http://www.spoorthifoundation.org/

Other ways you can contribute:

1.    Like us on facebook or follow us on twitter

2. Spread the word with your simple share or retweet with #joyofteachingweek and #spoorthifoundation

3.    Stay tuned for our regular updates. 

By Lavanya Kashyap

It has been more than eight months since I joined Spoorthi foundation and so far it has been an incredible journey. We, the members of Spoorthi foundation, started our work with ‘one book one dream’ event in Maharaja Institute of Technology where many students participated. The next event was on 150^th birth anniversary of swami Vivekananda. An essay competition on the topic ‘nanna kanasina Bharata’ was held in Vontikoppal government school. Prizes were distributed to the winners. We also gave away some necessary stuff like geometry sets and the books we had collected earlier, for the students of 9^th class. Teaching sessions on computers and English were the other events held in three different schools- Vontikoppal government school, Tilaknagar government school and Gangotri government school. We were joined by ‘The project Reach out’ members from SJCE for the same purpose in Gangotri School.

We have our meetings once a week and we discuss the events to be held for the upcoming week. We trustees Santhosh S V, Akash V, Anusha Patil, Anvitha Anand, Sahana K, Lavanya Kashyap, Sowjanya K R, Vijay and Tejaswini Anith put forth our ideas, discuss them and try implementing them.

For the upcoming weeks, we have many other plans such as organizing ‘joy of teaching week’ on the occasion of Dasara festival from 6^th to 12^th November in different schools where we will have events on both academic and extra-curricular activities. We are planning on to include orphanages and old age homes in our service during the upcoming days.

My first experience of teaching was when I taught computers in Tilaknagar School. I felt wonderful for sharing my knowledge with the children. To hear them call me “miss” itself brought lots of pleasure. Getting good responses from the children gave me the satisfaction of teaching. Educating children is the best job I have done so far in my life. I am very much pleased to be a part of Spoorthi foundation and to co-ordinate its activities. I will keep trying to give my best to achieve the goals of our foundation.

Article published in the annual college magazine of MIT Mysore
By Ayesha Iftiqhar

Every once in a while we come across incidences and stories that inspire us, touch our souls and helps us to regain our faith in humanity. Here I share with you all one such story that has happened in our very own college.

Nelson Mandela once said that- “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Few of our friends took this message a little more seriously than the rest and started working towards empowering the poor kids around them with education by starting a NGO called “SPOORTHI”.

The NGO SPOORTHI was founded by Santhosh S.V aka Veer Santhosh on 20^th May 2012 along with his friends Anvitha Anand, Akash Honnappa, Anusha Patil and Ayesha Iftiqhar. It had been a dream of his since 9 years to work towards preventing girl kids from dropping out of school as the literacy rate of women in India is very poor which became the central purpose of the organisation. It was also focused on sharing the knowledge they possessed with the students of government schools. The present team members of the organisation include Vijay K, Lavanya Kashyap, Sahana K, Tejashwini Anith, Aleem, Saujanya P, Saujanya KR and Shree Hari R.

They started their work by conducting the event ‘one book one dream’  in which each student of MIT was requested to donate a notebook during mahadasara 2012 and the collected notebooks were donated to children in need and to orphanages. They later became associated with the Pratham organisation in Mysore by supporting their ‘sponsor a child for one year’ plan. On the occasion of 150^th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda they successfully conducted an essay writing competition with the theme of ‘India of my dreams (Nanna Kanasina Bhaaratha)’ at a government high school in Vontikoppal, Mysore. Their latest event was termed ‘Computer, Alphabets and Stories’ where the basics of computers and English language were taught to the government school children of Tilaknagar, Mysore.

Their future prospects include assisting two financially backward students to pursue their higher education after 10^th std; career guidance to the students of 10^th and PU studying in government school & colleges; spreading socio-environmental awareness in government school children; starting a school that is entirely funded by public which is a by the public, for the public, of the public school and sponsoring at least two girl school drop outs to continue their education.

You plant a seed and you fill a barren space with fruits and flowers, you smile at someone and you fill a troubled heart with a moment of joy, you light a candle and you fill light in a place of darkness and similarly when you share knowledge you kindle a fire in a person’s mind which will pass on to another and that in turn to another until who knows in what far place it’s warmth is felt. 

This is what the members of SPOORTHI have been selflessly doing by spreading knowledge to young and eager minds. I am privileged to share with everyone the wonderful work my friends have been doing and to support it and I am certain that everyone in MIT is as proud as I am. Keep up the good work guys, our love and support is always with you all.

By Adarsh Ramesh on August 23, 2013

Three days ago, Veer Santhosh, the CEO at Spoorthi Foundation contacted Project ReachOut and informed about his organization’s training session that would be held at the Government school today. We then researched a bit about their organization onhttp://www.spoorthifoundation.org/ and sent him our consent.

Today, at around 2:30, we let our registration process hang for a while and went to the school.We earnestly held our files that were showing off our brand new logo and walked the corridor, being happy with the fact that only three days after its inception, Project ReachOut had begun its first fieldwork…

Our team split up into two pools and went to two different classrooms.

Ms. Sowjanya and Ms. Roopa, engineers from MIT Mysore, were teaching English to the seventh standard students, when I knocked on the door and introduced myself and my friends/Reachers, saying, ‘We are from Project ReachOut. We are here to work for you…’

Well, everything has a first time!

Twenty kids stood up and said, unanimously, ‘Good afternoon sir,’ in their own unique dragging tone and involuntarily sparked the nostalgia. We quickly acknowledged them and took our seats in the last bench, as always. We took out our notepads and cameras and began to scribble and click.

Soujanya and Roopa patiently explained the English Grammar…in Kannada. They spoke about nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions et cetera. The kids merrily threw their hands up, saying, ‘Miss! Miss!’ and happily answered all the questions that were put forth. The teachers were commendable with their skills of interacting and keeping the class up and awake…

This continued for over fifteen minutes, by which time we had enough information from that particular classroom. So we excused ourselves and walked in to the adjoining class, the sixth standard, where twenty-four children, sitting together irrespective of the boy-girl hoopla, were being trained with the basics of computers. Mr. Veer Santosh accompanied us into the class and a while later, when he spotted us struggling to see the laptop screen, he came up to us and confessed that they had intended to use a projector for their class, but due to the unavailability of elementary yet essential components like spike buster, adapter and plug points, they couldn’t conduct the class as planned. Nevertheless, Ms. Lavanya and Ms. Sahana managed to do a great job by making use of their laptops to show the slides containing the pictures of the basic hardware components. The teaching was methodic and commensurate! This class too continued for another half hour…till 3:34, to be precise, during which time we discussed matters of prime interest with Mr. Veer.

We learnt from our discussion that Spoorthi Foundation was looking for volunteers, volunteers who could teach anything they wanted. Be it Math, Science, English, Hindi, Kannada, computers or whichever subject they might find appropriate. We were told that at the moment, there were seven members of their core committee, who handled two classes every week. But then, since most of them were offered jobs at various companies, in the coming days, their schedules would be cramped and, the teaching wouldn’t be all that effective. So, they asked us to adjure the Reachers, who have been so kind to follow Project ReachOut, to spend at least a half hour, once a week, with the kids, and to impart the knowledge they’ve amassed in all these years. Just a half hour a week means a lot more than our sense of the word “just”. It means you inspiring a part of the child, who would one day grow up to be a well educated citizen of this country, changing the very fabric of this country…

Even Spoorthi Foundation believes that “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.

Well, what do you think?

We then added more pictures to our duffle, addressed the students, and offered to assist them with teaching tomorrow. Veer and his team joyously consented.

We asked them if we could use the projector for our class tomorrow, and, in response to our query, he told us that Spoorthi didn’t own a projector. Veer said that he borrowed it each week for the training session! We were told that they really couldn’t invest in a projector. They’d rather put it into better use by sponsoring a kid or two. Well, we get the logic. But then, it really would be more interactive and eventful for the kids to learn from a wider perspective. They’d get to visualize it better, understand the concepts more fluently and stack it in their minds for a longer time…

At this juncture, Project ReachOut puts forth a humble request to those samaritans who are capable of spending a few minutes with the kids and, who can afford to sponsor a projector, to kindly contact us or contact the CEO of Spoorthi without delay, because nothing is as dire as helping the young minds nourish.

Education is a tool that creates better human beings, and, as better human beings, it shouldn’t be all that hard for us to analyze the gravity of the situation and to take the necessary measures to alleviate the causes of this bleak situation.

Anyway, we were then made to watch a splendid video, after which the kids bade us their goodbyes. Well, they weren’t aware of the fact that they’d be seeing us even tomorrow!