Loading

MOVING TOWARDS EDUCATION EQUITY Newsletter 4

Dear Community,

Welcome to our final Newsletter of the 2021 Incubation year. Amidst the prolonged school closures and the next wave of pandemic spreading worldwide, our community continued to persevere. We witnessed the powerful spaces created by members of our community to bring the next wave of education that is blended, inclusive, meaningful, and increasingly revolutionary in its intent and content.

We are also excited to share that Selections for our 6th Cohort of Entrepreneurs is completed, and we are ready to incubate another 11 Entrepreneurs in 2022.

As we continue to RISE with Love and Interdependence, this Newsletter shares our work at different levels - Entrepreneur Partner (Alumni), Entrepreneur (Current Cohort), Fellow, and Student. This is to celebrate each small step taken to blossom the capabilities of oneself and others towards building a movement of Ed-equity - all towards an India free of poverty and filled with love.

Work at Entrepreneur Partner Level

As a part of Stage 2 of our Incubation Program (post-incubation support), we support TFIx Alumni Entrepreneurs who have successfully completed incubation, launched Fellowships, and become ‘TFIx Entrepreneur Partners’. We are focused on creating spaces for them to discuss the interlinking problems hindering the development of their region, and network and collaborate to collectively solve those issues. We also provide opportunities for them to sharpen their strengths as leaders and give connections to help them scale their work. With this interdependent and reflective community of Entrepreneurs, we have been able to reach 2,23,039 Children across India. Read on to know more about their work!

Entrepreneur Partner Retreat- Delhi

The annual Entrepreneur Partner Retreat was held in Delhi on 25-26th Feb 2022. We had 14 Entrepreneurs from 4 different Cohorts of TFIx attending the retreat. It was a space co-owned, planned and executed by our Entrepreneur Partners (Alumni).

They got a chance to learn more deeply about each other's model, successes and failures over the last year and understand each other more deeply as people through informal spaces. As they anchored dialogues and conversations to their shared vision for every child in India, the depth of discussion and connection was genuinely inspiring. We saw potential collaborations emerging between Entrepreneurs through the time they spent together.
We also explored Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy of learning and growing through heritage walks. This organically led our Entrepreneurs to reconnect with themselves and think about the core of all education: a flowering of the human consciousness into excellence, truth, and beauty. Moreover, we got a chance to visit a stud farm and learnt a little about the philosophy of breeding horses!

Ummeed Inclusion Fellowship

Sajida Vadgama is TFIx 2019 Entrepreneur who works towards enabling Children with neurodiversity through Ummeed.

My idea of inclusive and meaningful education for ‘all’ students includes students with significant support needs and developmental disabilities who are multiply marginalised.

Ummeed’s Fellowship model is an immersive two-year experience during which identified Inclusion Champions (teachers/ mental health professionals or special educators) are placed in different under-resourced schools within Mumbai. Through this experience, Fellows get exposed to the grass root realities of inclusion (or lack thereof) in schools and develop skills to become strong advocates of Inclusion within and outside the classroom. Today, Ummeed is reaching 2000 Children. Sajida shares how Ummeed is strengthening and scaling its Fellowship model towards attaining an excellent education for ‘all’ children in the video below.

The Bridge Fellowship

Sakshi Srivastava is TFIx 2021 Entrepreneur who works towards achieving life skills for Children from Uttar Pradesh slums.

Through a 2-year Fellowship, we work with Fellows to improve student learning outcomes and build leadership skills. Anubhuti Fellows are exposed to the ground realities of the education system and work with different stakeholders to drive change at the local and systemic levels.

In the video below, she shares how their team and TFIx community’s vision-action alignment has enabled them to reach 25000 Children. Also, how they plan to strengthen their model to build communities in Haryana and UP for an equal voice for each stakeholder in the system.

Exploring the power of Education in conflict-hit areas

Understanding Kashmir and Northeast were spaces for our Entrepreneurs to share the cultural history and current reality of the area and their outstanding work in the region. For our Supporters, it was an exploratory space to understand Kashmir and the Northeast and the needs of Children there.

Understanding Kashmir and Northeast were spaces for our Entrepreneurs to share the cultural history and current reality of the area and their outstanding work in the region. For our Supporters, it was an exploratory space to understand Kashmir and the Northeast and the needs of Children there.
The sensitive nature of the discussions offered a glimpse into the many complexities of these regions. It also exposed the dire need of supporting the cause of Education there. With the Forbes Marshall team, TFIx is brainstorming ideas and structures that can be explored through these collectives to implement innovative projects that can lead to change.

Entrepreneur Partner Support for Fundraising

As a part of Stage 2, Post-incubation support, we run a Fundraising track for our Entrepreneur Partners. Every quarter we organise sharing circles to have meaningful conversations with them. They share their best practices and challenges faced while running Fellowships in blended ways and learn together.

Vrinda shares from her experience of 5 years of developing functional linkage with donor partners to ensure the sustainability of TFIx and our Entrepreneurs’ organisations.

Entrepreneur Partner (Alumni) Survey Report 2022

Every year we collect data from our previously incubated Entrepreneurs to understand their progress on Fellowship Program Design and gauge the projections of numbers of Students and Fellows (teachers/community leaders) our Entrepreneurs have reached through their respective Fellowships.

Today, we have built a vibrant movement of 4709 leaders (Entrepreneurs, Fellows, Alumni combined). We are immensely grateful to all our supporters.

Work at Entrepreneur Level

Each of our 2021 Entrepreneurs is in the final stage of launching their Fellowship models. By August 2022, 11 new Fellowship programs will be launched by this group. This is a massive leap towards reaching more and more children across India.

Learning Circle 3

Once every quarter TFIx team, the cohort of Entrepreneurs and TFIx experts come together for 4-5 days to support each others’ ideas and develop the necessary technical skills needed for running a Fellowship. Our 3rd Learning Circle happened virtually. Entrepreneurs worked on various aspects of Fellowship like Fellow Curriculum, People Development, Pitch Presentation and Inclusive Education.

TFIx organised a session on Excellent Education. We explored healthy collaborations with our external partners from different backgrounds to talk about Children’s needs and their respective models that unify diverse ways to meet these Children’s needs.
In the Strategy session, Entrepreneurs learnt about designing a 5 and 2-year strategic plan for the Fellowship (linked to organisation strategy) and creating an Operations Plan for the coming two years. Anna Maria from the Strategy and Learning team at Teach For India facilitated the space. We also had Vaishnavi Srinivasan, TFIx 2020 Entrepreneur to present her organisation Bhumi’s Organisation to Fellowship Strategy Plan.

Fundraising Webinars

As a part of the Fundraising Strategy to support our Ed-Entrepreneurs, we partnered with top CSR domain experts to share various insights on how CSRs identify an organisation to fund, the right approach and pitch to CSRs, how to change one’s internal processes to attract CSR donors and ascertain the type of engagement that CSRs like to do with NGOs.
We also partnered with Mr Jhaveri, an HNI himself, and Megha Jain from Dasra, who has worked extensively with HNIs, to share their insights on attracting and engaging HNI donors.

Visiting Sites the blended way!

During LC 3, our Entrepreneurs virtually visited Dadasaheb Gaikwad, TFIx 2021 Entrepreneur’s site - GramUrja. GramUrja works towards the educational transformation of communities in Beed, Maharashtra. They explored GramUrja’s Teaching Fellowship Model, understood the organisation's challenges and picked up best practices for Fellow development, Student learning and Performance management. They also shared critical feedback on the program, which will help Dadasaheb craft his Fellowship better.

It was incredible to see GramUrja’s vision of empowered rural communities coming out very strongly in each conversation with different stakeholders. We are very grateful to each team member of GramUrja for creating this space for all of us!

Our Program Partners also visited their Entrepreneurs' sites to understand their observations of the intervention in action. They use these observations to provide proper feedback towards strengthening the Fellowship programs.

Chandan Singh, TFIx 2021 Entrepreneur, works with Children from rural Jharkhand on Social and Ethical Learning and Financial and Legal Education. Through Pratigya, he works towards making communities in rural Jharkhand sustainable and aware.

During a virtual site visit to his site, Ishita Dutta, Program Partner at TFIx shared how Chandan has built a team of local leaders who are completely aligned with Pratigya’s vision and mission. She also shared about the creative implementation of child-safety policies advocated by the team to gauge the short-term and long-term impact of abuse on a Child’s outcomes.

Recently, two of our 2021 Entrepreneurs, Rinsa Perapadan from Tinker Qubits and Nikita Ketkar from Masoom, collaborated. Rinsa works towards enabling Children with 21st-century skills to use computer programming and physical computing. In contrast, Nikita’s work is focused on providing night school students with skills to unlock their full potential and find job opportunities. Tinker Qubits taught Masoom students how to develop Apps on Thinkable.

Radhika Gulati, Program Partner, TFIx who visited their site in Mumbai, Maharashtra shared that the students belonged to diverse backgrounds and age groups, and yet, the entire process of training students was well spread-out to ensure maximum learning for each.

Asaadharan Fellowship

Aastha Kanodia, TFIx 2021 Entrepreneur, works with govt. School students in primary grades from the slums of Surat, Gujarat. Through the Asaadharan Fellowship model, she's working towards their Holistic Foundational Education and capacity building of existing government school teachers. For the same, Asaadharan has partnered with the Sarva Shikshan Abhiyan to intervene in their Special Training Program (STP) that works with these students. She recently launched her Fellowship with 2 Fellows and is reaching 160 Children. Watch this video to know more about their program!

Help Asaadharan find the right people for the first cohort of this essential program! You can share the link below with people who might be interested.

Work at Fellow and Student Level

Fellow Stories

‘Leadership India Needs’, an initiative to document leadership, resilience, and transformation stories emerging from various Fellowship Programs run by TFIx Es. We got a chance to interact with Fellows across the country to understand their journey, challenges, and achievements.

Neelanjana Varanasi is a Bhumi Fellow (Bhumi Fellowship was incubated by TFIx in 2020) who is working towards the vision that Children will develop into confident, creative, and resilient young learners and individuals. She is designing and leading the implementation of content creation for FLN and SEL to be shared on Bhumi’s YouTube channel for public consumption. This is an initiative to cover foundational concepts in creative methods and in a manner that children find easy to understand. This project has the potential to impact children not just in all other educational programs in Bhumi but also outside.

In the video below, she shares how understanding and working on her personal growth helped her overcome challenges towards achieving her vision for her students.

Naaz is a Fellow Alumnus of Alohomora (incubated by TFIx in 2017) and currently working as a Program Mentor at Foster and Forge (incubated by TFIx in 2018). Naaz shares how Alohomora’s ‘Community Leads Fellowship’ helped her identify and sharpen her skills as a leader. Also, how her role is contributing to the development of others in the system and contributing to the larger movement of Education Equity. Watch the video below to know more!

Jyoti is also a Fellow Alumnus of Alohomora (incubated by TFIx in 2017) who is currently working with Fellows and Community leaders at Kshamatalya Foundation (incubated by TFIx in 2017). She is one of those 91% Fellows who chose to continue working in the Education sector post the Fellowship. At Kshamatalya, Jyoti is working towards developing regional leadership through Community Engagement and Systemic transformation in education at the block level. The key focus is on integrated pedagogy, SEL, and 21st-century life skills.

In the video below, she shares about her immersive ‘collective action-oriented approach’ through which she worked towards achieving an excellent education for 150 Children of her community.

Student Stories

Prakash Chand is a grade 10 student of Nanakmatta Public School (incubated by TFIx in 2020). He believes in an education that enables one to unleash their true potential, making one implement what they believe in, speak up, and rise to be their true selves. Listen to Prakash share his role in building a movement towards education equity in the podcast below!

UPDATES!

Selections for TFIx Cohort 2022

We got 43 applications this Recruitment cycle. Out of these, 12 will be selected for the 2022 Cohort. This year too, we held Selections virtually. We worked on shifting the Selection rubrics to align with TFIx Unifying Principles. Our selectors continued to be a mix of TFIx Entrepreneur Partners, TFIx Program Partners, Teach For India Senior Staff, and external partners who understood TFIx deeply.

TFIx is moving towards a staged approach concerning its Recruitment/ Selections. Here the focus is on Mindset/ Investment/ alignment with Unifying Principles/ core competencies of the Entrepreneurs, etc. The idea is to provide vital support to Candidates and make them ready for Incubation. The support will be designed for our High Potential Candidates, and specific need-based opportunities will be created to prepare them for the Incubation.

Swetha was one of the TFIx Selectors this year. She shares her 'why' behind the Fellowship model being an ideal intervention for our Entrepreneurs' organisations.

Welcoming our Advisory Board!

Their connections and fundamental questions towards furthering clarity in our work have enabled us to achieve our vision so far. We are incredibly excited to have them on board to provide access to experience, perspectives, and resources to strengthen our work.

The Forbes Marshall has been a constant support to TFIx programs and has witnessed the transformative power of quality education that brings long term sustainable change through empowered communities.

Here’s what they have to share about their experience with TFIx!

InspirED 2022

This is a virtual conference happening in February, co-led and co-designed by all Teach For India teams. The idea is for our Entrepreneurs and their teams to get a chance to interact with the wider TFI community and also draw inspiration back for their work.
Here's a list of other upcoming spaces. Stay tuned!
Created By
Divya Dhingra
Appreciate