A performance of “Jana Gana Mana”, India’s national anthem

A Vibha booth was set up and information was distributed. Overall, the endeavor was reasonably successful, with manypeople expressing interest in Vibha affairs.  Still, there is much room for growth – there are a plethora of artistic, cultural, and other types of events that Vibha could attempt to permeate.  From my experience, Vibha was not well known, at least from the people who were asked.  Given the scale at which Vibha is operating in the U.S., there is certainly potential for Vibha to match the common ubiquity of say, Red Cross, in the long term; sustained projection of what Vibha is and what it represents could help the cause immensely.  I was somewhat disappointed at the lack of awareness in the sample population I surveyed, and through more targeted, streamlined campaigning, Vibha has the potential gain substantial traction in India over time.

Given the dynamic and massive population of India, different approaches could yield largely different results than we see in the U.S. – take the event “Art for Heart” for instance – simply organizing an event with a school could quickly accrue hundreds of entries, whereas in the U.S., soliciting interest sometimes proves difficult. The environment in India is quite different than intuition from the U.S. would perhaps imply – with a reservoir of latent possibility, the opportunities are massive and numerous for Vibha’s flourishing.

How can Vibha gain influence in India?  E-mail your thoughts to acganesh@stanford.edu.

A fun-filled day with indoor table tennis and chess tournaments and various other awareness events was an excellent addition to the schedule of all who attended the occasion on Saturday.

In contrast to previous Vibha events, the Vibha Dream Play 2012 was the first program to be fully organized by the youth. From publicity to registrations to sponsorships and buying prizes, the event was all mapped out by youth, who were dedicated to serving the community. As the organizer of the event, Youth Lead Neeraja Sarda put it across, “No hurdles were too big for our group of dedicated volunteers this year.  As soon as we had our first meeting, a location was set, plans were made, leads were assigned, and a date was chosen. When our first venue brought up problems, we stayed in touch. The hard work of the team and careful attention …ensured that our event was a success.”

From the bold move to change the name from Khel Mela to a more encompassing Dream Play, designed to encourage the participation of people from all ethnicities, and from informing school clubs to mass emailing every week, these were just some of the tasks Vibha Youth focused on to make the trademark event a success. This included harnessing the power of social media, such as posting on Facebook and tweeting. The youth team also was responsible for coordination and planning which they seemed to handle remarkably, even after a delay due to the change in venue and losing two weeks of precious time. The parent coordinator, Priti Sarda, also added to this mentioning, “I was amazed to see that these students who are typical teenager in their behavior, are really talented, and can do anything… they managed everything… those who were there would see they were only having fun, but it was their efforts behind the smoothly run event.” While performing these activities, the main goal of Vibha was never put out of sight, Vibha strives continuously to create brighter futures for underprivileged children around the world, a motto that has proved itself true by the success of all of Vibha’s fundraisers.

 
CHESS

The 2012 Dream Play chess tournament was held in K-3, K-6, K-9, K-12 and open categories, where many passionate chess players had an opportunity to shine. A special gratitude must be shown for Steve Schneider who helped coordinate the chess tournaments throughout the day. Steve was roped in by the Vibha Youth for this year as an excellent suitor for chess, due to his experience as the founder and director of the chess school Championship Chess and the author of the Scholastic Chess Series. Coach Steve is currently developing a network of Affiliate instructors across America to further his vision of providing strong chess programs for children.
The chess tournament was a prolific event, with almost seventy children and adults attending, from the novice to the experienced and people of all scopes. The tournament used the standard Swiss-system format, allowing everyone to continue playing rounds till the end of the tournament and the fact that it was unrated strengthened the maxim of improvement. The primary and elementary school divisions played a fast chess game in which players were assigned other partners as soon as their match ended. This allowed participants to play unlimited matches, the focus being on excellence rather than victory. The open category was built on the idea of sudden death (SD/30 minutes for each game)

The chess tournament was a revelation of mind strategies. The first awards went to Pranav Potluri and Sanjay Shajith for showing technique and temperament, being in the tender years of Kindergarten and First Grade. In the fixed playing categories, Siddharth Vijay and Eeshwar Potluri were named the winner and runner up, respectively for the K-3 divisions. Ainesh Balaga and Sid Balaga were crowned as co-champions in the K-6 category and seconded by Tejas Mirthipati. The K-9 category champion was Rithvik Sarasani and in the hotly competed Open category, Shyam Dasari was deservedly handed the cup while the runner up trophy was presented to Srini Baddam.

 
TABLE TENNIS

Table tennis was also a crowd puller this year, the event bringing in almost fifty people. The several categories ensured that all could participate and reap for their talents. The numerous divisions were broadly divided into mens, womens, mixed, and U-15. As the matches unfolded one by one, the players did not fail to impress, engaging the audience and fair play their dictum.

 
The men’s single was a showcase for skill, as it has been since Dream Play’s inception, churning out many bright prospects as well as old masters. In an intense showdown between Vasudev Kallapur and Krishna Venkatesh, Vasudev Kallapur was rightfully awarded the winner of the Men’s Singles event. After several rounds of sweating it out at the table, the trio of Suresh Kanchusthambham, Vasudev Kallapur, and Srinivasarao Kanchusthambham emerged as the victors over runner-ups Krishna Venkatesh, Satish Vasa, and Vinay Uchil in the TT Team Final. In the final mens match, the Men’s Doubles finale, Suresh Kanchusthambham & Vasudev Kallapur triumphed over Srinivasarao Kanchusthambham & Vinay Uchil, thus sealing Vasudev Kallapur excellent showing in the tournament. The women’s and youth playoffs were no less spectacular than the men’s, and with three categories to engage, there was a good turnout and match quality. For the Women’s Singles match, victory was rewarded to Archana Athalye, who won against 2009 finalist Rinku Singhal. The mixed doubles’ final proved to be no less than nail-biting, where Archana Athalye & Mahesh Athalye pulled through to clinch the cup against well played second place Pallavi Sathe & Vaibhav Sathe. In the finals of the U-15 Cup, a commendable performance in an electric match by Yagnik Tadavarthi ensured that he won against Chetan Velivela.

 
The 9th Annual Vibha Dream Play was a success and the youth’s commitment towards service through restarting the Vibha Youth as well as management of the event along with the support of the people, families, and sponsors that helped in Dream Play is what really made this event click. The event served its purpose, and as Suresh Kanchusthambham of title sponsor K-MACS put it across, “Vibha – its passionate volunteers and the cause… has inspired me a lot. Our company has joined as the title sponsor for the Vibha Dream Play primarily to be part of good team working for a great cause. We will work closely with Vibha in coming years.”

 
Vibha is grateful through the support it has received in numbers through its sponsors, especially title sponsor K-MACS, as well as financial and physical help to make this Dream Play a success of immense stature.

 
Come join us. Vibha is not only an organization, but a movement to make a positive difference in the lives of the millions of underprivileged children in India. Charity events like these raise money essentially for schooling for poor children in India and for American children’s fundraisers. Please help us help them by visiting www.vibha.org.

One of the most famous quotes of Sir Winston Churchill is, “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.” So we urge you to participate in our event and contribute generously towards this worthy cause. This year Vibha Bay Area presents “The Dream Mile 5K/10K/Half Marathon”, on Sunday June 10, at Hellyer County Park, San Jose, California.

Talk to friends and family, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, post comments/suggestions, write about us on your personal blogs, spread the word about “The Dream Mile”, showing you care!

a. Evaluation of each child to confirm and determine the extent of hearing loss, assess residual hearing and parental counseling.

b. Fitting of hearing aids or cochlear implants based on extensive scientific testing along with resident as well as visiting professionals.

 c. Devising and carrying out a tailor made therapy plan for the child, which would involve the parents as well as the child.

 d. In certain cases and after necessary audiological assessments, the child is recommended for cochlear implant. AURED uses the same Auditory Verbal Approach to work with the recipients of the implant to communicate effectively with these implants.

In its efforts of pursuing its initiatives of dealing with hearing impairment, AURED in association with Akansha Foundation, recently conducted a pilot test of conducting audiological testing of preschool and school going children. The test was conducted at Abhudaya Nagar Mumbai Public School in Kalachowkie, Mumbai. This would essentially help in preventing children with hearing disabilities being labeled as children with learning disabilities, by early detection and intervention of hearing disabilities in children. Once diagnosed, parents could be suitably advised, thus preventing  futher damage, which if left undetected can cause more damage.The response of this pilot test was positive, with 109 children being tested.The principals and teachers of the participating schools were keen that all the primary children be tested. Out of the 109 children who were tested, it was found that 56 children needed intervention- which is almost 50% of those tested!

AURED, is following up with the municipal social worker and class teacher, to take the necessary actions based on the outcome of this test.The figure is alarming and gives a stark picture of the situation and the urgency to handle a scenario of this nature.There is a serious requirement of training teachers,and parents to recognise hearing problems so that effective steps can be taken to shape these children’s future.

This entire text is written by a team of two enthusiastic nine-year olds, with only minor grammatical corrections made by tyrannical adults.

My mouth let out a satisfying burp. Boy! I just had a scrumptious dinner at the 5 Star Taj hotel in India. My tummy was all happy and the doorman opened the gigantic, grand doors.  I took one last  look at the place as the doorman said “Goodbye!” in a pleasant voice.  We got into our car to head out and I peeked out of the big window and in front of my eyes were  a bunch of kids – around 7 of them. There was no mother or father, and all they had was each other.  All of them looked sad eyed, scattered around in the traffic, begging for money and at least some decent food, going through the waiting cars.  Suddenly, the green light made a flash and the children all ran to a lonely curb for their lives. I looked back at those helpless children till they disappeared into the darkness of New Delhi.  All of a sudden my eyes became all watery — I was just so sorry for all the poor children risking their lives on the streets.  I had a meltdown. Why do children have to live such a life?  It seemed so unfair.  I felt that I really wanted to do something to change this.

The authors have fun during the unusual snow last year in Dallas: (left: Ashwini Ganesh, right: Anjali Gonuguntla)

In India, as I travelled, I came upon many kids, and all of them needed two small things: love and shelter.  Some children sell items and make a living instead of going to school. If you have been to India Gate or any other tourist attraction in India, you have probably seen little stalls selling small plastic toys, jumbo sized bouncy balls, small pretend cell phones that sing shocking Bollywood songs, and bird attracting whistles.  A lot of these stalls will have small children working in there. Many times, I came across children even selling their own wares. These kids try to earn money by selling these trinkets and toys.   They have to work to support their families.

Once, at a train station in Rajasthan, a small boy — who looked like he was nine years old — was selling small puppets and dolls to earn a living.  He had very faded clothes, but he knew everything about running a business. He could easily make a sensible bargain. He could tell you prices in a blink of an eyelid. He was supreme at mathematics. We bought some doll like puppets and were on our way. We saw many other kids selling dolls and puppets, but not all of them were like this young boy. Imagine what could happen to this boy if he was in school or being educated. He could be the businessman of tomorrow – but if he is left as he is, we might miss out on a great mind of the future. He might, perhaps, change a lot in the world.

Have you ever been to a country other than India? Perhaps maybe Africa, China, or the Middle East.  Children there also have the same problem. Too many children in this world are working to make a living instead of studying so that their future can be better.  This can ruin the next generation of the world.

This is where Vibha is trying to help.   Vibha supports programs that help these kids go to school and gets them off the streets so they can have a proper future.  As JFK said, “Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.”  

Vibha  has many activities to raise money so you can have fun and help children.  Some of the activities are kite flying festivals, dance and music competitions, Art for Heart, Dream Mile, Cricket Cup, and many others.

As tomorrow is not yet here and yesterday is gone, lets begin today to help out in any way we can.  This is why I volunteer and why you should continue to also!

Vibha (meaning effulgence or radiance in Sanskrit), is a volunteer driven organization dedicated to uplifting the lives of underprivileged children in India and the US.  The DC Action Center organized the Spelling Bee 2012 event on March 4th at Nysmith School, VA for the second time.

Vibha DC commends Nysmith School for generously hosting and sponsoring the event.

We targeted young children from age group 6-11 and provided them with a unique platform to showcase their English language and vocabulary skills.

The Spelling Bee panel was comprised of an experienced professional team of three judges and two pronouncers that include: FCPS Principal Mr. Jason Pensler, Dr. Jessica Mcllvane, Dr. Sheela Modin, Ms. Nancy Grassman (former High School Teacher and Realtor with Coldwell Banker), Ms. Stephanie Konopa (former Spelling Bee Winner and Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee Participant).

Hardworking volunteers of Vibha DC reached out to more than 10,000 people from Virginia and Maryland. 128 students from various schools registered, and roughly 200 parents showed up at the event.  There was great enthusiastic participation from the Indian American community and their children. The registration fees were also very insignificant, allowing the admittance of one adult for free along with every participant, thanks to the support of Sulekha.com.

There were 24 dedicated event volunteers who made this event a grand success.  Volunteers’ small children also engaged to help make a difference. High quality photography and videos were taken by Ms. Kumud Sharma.  Above all, Vibha DC salutes their generous supporters and sponsors.

Best of all, expenses were completely sponsored and there was 7 fold increase in registration compared to past year!

Our results illustrate the spectacular potential that the unique Spelling Bee event, although uncommon among Action Centers, has.  We encourage other branches to try to emulate this event!

Our first fundraiser, Bowl for a Child, was to take place at Boston Bowl on March 10th, 2012. Even though the Boston Action Center was in its infancy, Arvind, Prabhu, and I seized to opportunity to have our first fundraiser.

With only one week to pull it off, we sent out emails in bulk to the Google group, our loved ones, and promoted the event at local meetups.  Avneesh, a volunteer from the Google group, promised to retrieve 10 people from his company, but ended up exceeding this! As the days passed, more and more people joined the Google group and incrementally contacted us.  We were hopeful.

And at last, the day arrived, and people started coming in. We hung large promotional banners, and gave out T-shirts.   The digital bowling alleys were activated as enough people to utilize a lane materialized.  Many “Ooh!”s and “Aah!”s could be heard amidst the fun as people starting bowling strikes.  We also had cake and pizza; everyone was happy and hyped.

Financially, it was a reasonably successful event, with 26 people arriving.  Still, our primary focus was on recruiting volunteers, without worrying much about funds.

Finally, everyone wore their T-shirts and posed for a picture with the banner of Vibha. Many people showed enthusiasm to volunteer in the Action Center in an overall successful event!

Vibha is very unique in that it was created to fill the desire of those who felt they could create change but were not able to for a plethora of reasons (location, lack of confidence, extremely daunting work, no support community etc.) Thus, while Vibha substantially impacts the lives of underprivileged children in India and the US, it does so by “educating”, “empowering” and “enabling” any individual that wants to make a difference in the underprivileged child. So, you have people in North America that want to do something about the plight of underprivileged children in India and you also have grass-roots entrepreneurs in small villages in India who believe they have a solution to a particular problem related to the underprivileged child – Vibha is the platform that brings these two desires together. Thus, the premise behind Vibha is “If you want to make a difference – come and join us – we’ll show you how! No problem of any size is unsolvable. It’s very doable, come and join the Vibha movement and we’ll make it happen together!”

Our current objective. What are we seeking to accomplish and what do we need to get there? 

Vibha vision is to ensure every underprivileged child attains his or her right to health, education and opportunity. Given such a broad vision, what do we do. We are nothing but a social venture capitalist. The difference being, our exit is not an IPO, but our exist is when we have found a sustainable, scalable, and replicable solution to a systemic problem that impacts the life of an underprivileged child. How do we do this? We seed, mentor, grow and scale solutions that can radically and completely FIX  a particular problem across India. This is best explained by an example. We have a couple of such examples. Take for instance Sikshana – it’s a fabulous solution which ensures that every municipal school in India provides what it is supposed to provide – a fabulous eduction to its students. Just because it is a municipal school does not by any means mean that results have to be sub-standard to private schools. We are now taking this solution national across India various states. It started of with 40 schools, then 90 and now will soon be implemented in 600 schools. Unicef now wants to work with Sikshana to take the solution even further. So what did we fix – we have found a sustainable, scalable and replicable solution to the systemic problem of underperforming municipal schools. Vibha seeded the social entrepreneur, worked close with him, brought-in required expertise from the outside whether management, financial – ensured the solution is sustainable and scalable and now we’re providing that solution to any organization that wants to implement it anywhere – take the formula and run. Another such example is DSS or “Door-Step School” which we will talk more on later. That provides a sustainable, scalable and replicable solution to the problem of educating the children of migrant laborers.

Leverage points that will make Vibha successful

Vibha have 4 pedestals – its Volunteers – its Donors – Its Social Entrepreneurs and its other NGO partners.

Volunteers – Vibha is a completely volunteer driven organization. The absolute core of this organization is the volunteers. Without the volunteers – there is no Vibha. These volunteers do everything from fund-raising, project selection, project monitoring, project visits, marketing, grant-writing and more. Also Volunteers beget Volunteers – thus Vibha in itself is un-sustainable if we don’t constantly keep recruiting new volunteers with new ideas.

Donors – Vibha’s donors enable Vibha to invest in the social entrepreneur to bring about sustainable, scalable and replicable change. The donor in Vibha is one who is investing capital that will be spend in a responsible manner on the social entrepreneur towards finding solutions for systemic problems.

The Social Entrepreneur – The grass-roots social entrepreneur is the change agent located on the ground. He or She is the person who believes that he or she can actually solve a problem. They may not have all the know-how, the funds or the tools – but they do believe that they can solve a problem. That’s the first step – if one doesn’t believe a problem is solvable, it will never get solved. The grass-roots social entrepreneur is the change agent that Vibha enables through tools, capital, know-how, experts, management practices, financial education and more. This pedestal ensures a cure to a systemic problem is found.

The last pedestal – partner NGOs – this is where the scaling up of a solution found comes about. Vibha is not in the business of finding a solution and keeping it to itself. Vibha is in the business of finding a solution to various problems related to the underprivileged child and then sharing this solution with whom-so-ever wants to implement it. A systemic problem can only be solved in a sustainable manner if all stake-holders in the problem play their part. A big part of that is community at large. Vibha alone cannot mobilize the entire community across India. This is where we enable multiple other NGOs to take solutions that Vibha social entrepreneurs have found and implement and scale them across the country.

What makes Vibha effective?

In the case of Vibha “effective” means different things to different stake holders in the Vibha eco-system. Since Vibha is completely volunteer driven – are we using our volunteers’ time effectively is absolutely key. How do we measure that – we try and measure it volunteer satisfaction. By providing a volunteer a platform that he/she can be part of and thus becoming part of the solution v/s part of the problem in itself is effective. Now if volunteers spend a large amount of time on a small fund-raiser – is that effective? In some cases it very much is because it sparks off the attitude that says “Look – we can solve this!” In some instances it isn’t where that time could have been spent more effectively on something else.

Effectiveness of Vibha when it comes to the project and the grass roots social entrepreneur is something else. Here – it’s about the best use of limited capital and resources. Should Vibha fund one solution or the other? Which one is more scalable, which is more replicable, how long will Vibha need to be involved before the solution is self sustainable. These factors determine the effectiveness of our donor provided capital. Our projects team looks at all of this extremely carefully on a regular basis to ensure the most effective use of our capital.

Effectiveness of Vibha when it comes to the solution found – is purely based on how far and wide can the solution be implemented through partner organizations. While impacting one single neighborhood is very important, we measure the effectiveness of the solutions Vibha enables finding, by measuring how far has the solution scaled or can be scaled. We want to ensure that existing infrastructure in the form of partner organizations can be used as effectively as possible to disseminate a solution.

What are the metrics of success for Vibha?     

We track success in multiple ways as described above:

1. Is the volunteer base growing or shrinking?
2. Are there more Vibha action centers getting started or not?
3. Are we using volunteer time effectively?
4. Are we generating funds in tune with our disbursal rate?
5. Are we seeding enough projects to find the appropriate solutions?
6. Are the projects we have funded delivering to their fullest capacity?
7. Are the solutions we have found scaling to the levels we’d like them to?
8. Are we using govt provided and other local resources effectively?
9. Are we networking enough with partner NGOs towards scalability?
10. How fund-raiser-centric are we? Are we ensuring that we are not solely depended on fund-raiser events to survive and continue what we keep doing?

These are the kind of factors we use to track the organization’s success.

Some aspects of Vibha that are not common knowledge or sometimes are commonly misinterpreted.

Vibha is not a hand-out. Vibha as I mentioned earlier is a social venture capitalist looking to implement sustainable, scalable and replicable change. All donations into Vibha are an investment that can be used to bring about that change. We are a platform that bridges a gap between those that want to do and those that have the resources to enable those that “want to do” to actually “do”. This can be in the form of “time, talent or treasure” Some have time to give, some have talent to give and some have dollars to give. We have a way to use all of the above in a creative manner to bring about sustainable, scalable and replicable change. Thus the most subtle point here is noted in our mission “To educate, empower and enable “anyone” that “wishes to” make a difference in the life of the underprivileged child”. This mission stems from the philosophy that it takes a community to cause change and we need to get more and more and more people involved in bringing about long-term sustainable, scalable and replicable change.

Vibha’s major accomplishments?

1. A volunteer base of 800 volunteers currently with I would say close to 4 to 5 times that number that at some point have been Vibha volunteers
2. Since its inception in 1991 Vibha has impacted over 150,000 under-privileged children in India and the US, by enabling, empowering and encouraging more than 190 social  entrepreneurs and projects in India and the US through over $8Million in direct funding
3. The Vibha movement has now begun in 4 cities in India too. We are a team of over 800+ volunteers globally with action centers in 15 cities across the US and 4 cities in India.

4. UNICEF adopts the Sikshana model for a pilot program in 40 Upper primary schools in the Partur Block, Jalna District, Maharashtra to improve the academic standards in the government higher primary schools. Sikshana is a  unique effort started by the Sikshana Foundation (aka Sivasri Charitable Trust) to improve learning levels in the government primary schools through better access and delivery of education. Sikshana aims to improve the quality of education in Government primary schools at a typical cost of Rs. 500/- per annum per child. The improvement is measured in quantified scales in each school under standard test conditions. Sikshana acts primarily as a facilitator and not as provider of solutions. Vibha has played a critical role in making this happen .
5. SIKSHANA grows to cover over 600 schools and 75,000 kids, becoming one of the top intervention programs in the public school system in India! Vibha has been working with Sikshana since 2006 and enabled them to grow from 15 schools to their current size today.  As of 2011 Vibha supports 185 schools under the Sikshana project.
6. HEARDS successfully ERADICATES CHILD LABOR from a slum in Andhra Pradesh! HEARDS – a project located in Andhra Pradesh has been funded by Vibha since 2005 . The main focus of the project is to eradicate child labor, rescue children, provide them with bridge-education and mainstream them to government schools. The project operated at two locations. Earlier this year, one of those two locations was shut down. This was possible because with persistent effort over the last several years, HEARDS has managed to SUCCESSFULLY ERADICATED CHILD LABOR from one of those two locations!
7. Yahoo Employee Foundation re-invests in Vibha’s efforts by extending a grant of $30k for the academic year 2011-2012; validating Vibha’s model of lasting, scalable, replicable change
8. Vibha voted to Top 200 charities in Chase Community Giving Drive. http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/223122761-help-them-grow-inc-vibha

9. PRAGATI 2011 – (The second Vibha grass-root social entrepreneur conference held in Pune earlier this year) enabled 25 social entrepreneurs from all parts of the country to use Vibha as a platform to, share, learn and begin to implement Vibha’s scalable education programs across India.

Historical challenges or vulnerabilities that Vibha has faced?

Volunteers, Volunteers, Volunteers! The challenge of a volunteer-driven organization is always the same one and only one – How do we constantly recruit, train, sustain, and grow the volunteer base. That’s the most challenging part within Vibha. There are plenty of people globally that want to make a difference. How do we ensure they actually participate through Vibha and make that desire a reality. Everything stems from that one entity – the volunteer!

Another challenge is slow organic growth. For example – we know we have a couple of solutions ready to scale, however our fund-raising does not scale in a similar manner. Thus growing the fundraising base more so that we have the dollars to scale directly and through partnerships.

Another challenge is “grants” – We have fabulous success stories that can be scaled as I mentioned earlier. There are plenty of large grants out there available for such solutions. However, we have not been effective enough in that arena.

What would Vibha do with additional resources? 

Scale DSS (Door step school) – a project that bring the school to the construction site and directly impacts the live of the child of a migrant laborer. This solution is ready to scale nationally. We just lack enough resources to take it far and wide.

Seed more projects towards other solutions. We cannot seed a project unless we have at least 3-years worth of funds for it. Normally it takes up to 5 years to identify whether our investment is going to result in a sustainable, scalable and replicable solution. We today fund nearly 25 projects. We could do a lot more. For every 4 to 5 or even 6 projects we fund – we may find one sustainable, scalable and replicable solution that completely fixes a particular problem.

Hire one full-time person in India to take care of partnerships with foundations and other NGOs in India towards scaling Sikshana, DSS and HEARDS; as well as play the National Volunteer Coordinator role to capitalize on the energy we have developed within the volunteer base in India.

What are some gaps that Vibha could fill that we do not currently?

Implementing a strategy for taking Vibha global. We have requests from Australia, UK, Canada, the Middle East and more of people wanting to start Vibha action centers. We just haven’t had the bandwidth to look at all the legal implications on the same. As I said earlier, there are plenty of people that want to make a difference. We just need to ensure we channel that energy towards making the difference they desire.

But at the same time, there are small achievements which are slowly taking reasonable steps towards eradicating this black mark from our society.

HEARDS along with VIBHA’s support is celebrating its success in 2011 as it has completely eradicated child labor in Thotapalyam area of Chitor (Andhra Pradesh).With the right guidance from VIBHA, commitment of well-trained teachers, and co-operation of the parents, HEARDS has consistently worked towards this seemingly difficult road, and mainstreamed many children into Government schools.

HEARDS has been consistently working towards eradication of poverty in Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh, India since 1999. The main vision and mission of HEARDS is to eradicate child labor and to facilitate the holistic growth of every individual in the district via education, equality and liberation from poverty. The project covers children from the age of 5-14 covering grade levels 1 to 5.

Here we’d like to share one such story of Roshini who completed her 10th grade at Kasturba HS after being mainstreamed from the Thotapalyam center three years ago.  He scored 65% in the 10th boards and is now enrolled in “inter” at Vijayavani College with full scholarship for an EIT Lab Technician course.

Such success inspires us, and helps us to move forward with further determination to eradicate an evil which pulls down the real growth and progress of a nation.

And while we celebrate a success of this nature, let us look at what worked towards achieving this goal. The coordinators who relentlessly work behind these children truly understand the problems they face, and closely work with the parents and employers to broaden and change their outlook. This aspect has largely contributed to mainstreaming all the kids, along with, dedication of the teachers, adapting and implementing new and effective methods, ideas, and suggestions, and great relationship with local government schools.

VIBHA is honored to be associated with an organization with such determination and motivation. We hope to share many such success story in the coming year and make you – our patrons and volunteers- a contributor to such success stories!!