Janyaa reaches 210 schools

Remarkable achievement in 3 years with help from donors, partners and volunteers

August 2012

This year has been a remarkable year for Janyaa. We are now 3 years old and have touched the lives of over 20,000 children from 210 schools spread across 4 states in India. We could achieve this with support from our partners – MV Foundation, Spandana Foundation, SAP Labs Bangalore, VR Siddartha Engineering College and Lok Satta and regular donors like you and certainly our team of dedicated volunteers. We conducted teacher training sessions in all the schools on how to use our experiments and games and we continuously follow up with the partners/schools to ensure our program runs as per our guidelines.

Janyaa was founded in 2009 with work being initiated at four schools in Vijayawada. By 2010, we were working with nine schools in Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh. The projects proved to be a great success with both students and teachers. The children were found to be energized enough where they did not skip school on our activity days “even when it rained”. Well, the positive response was a confidence-booster for us to go beyond Krishna District. In 2011, we reached out to nearly 20,000 students in 210 schools across four states in India – Andhra  Pradesh (Chittoor, Mahboobnagar, Rangareddy, Nalgonda, Krishna, Guntur), Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

Going forward, we are eager to continue this exponential growth and hoping for the continued support from our friends and supporters.

Janyaa, a 501c(3) organization set up in 2009, focuses on developing creative problem solving skills in rural kids in India. The name, Janyaa, which translates to “life” appropriately fits with the vision of this organization. Please send your feedback on our program, events or the newsletter to Janyaa. We appreciate your support and time.

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Updates from India – August 2012

Growth of a our program in India – “Reaching new places and teaching more children”

August 2012

Surendra, India Co-ordinator for Janyaa, is the heart and soul of our operations in India. He has been instrumental in the exponential growth of Janyaa’s program.

He along with the team in Bangalore have started recording the experiments.  This will help us have these learning videos available to children and new instructors.

Recently, Surendra has also done the training program for a couple of towns in Maharashtra. This has helped spread this unique learning experience to the children in rural Maharashtra.

The program is successfully running in over 210 schools and is exponentially growing to many more schools with the help of our dedicated partners.

We have also recently revamped our kits, simplified our training material and added new experiments.

Also, here is a nice video summarizing what Janyaa does…

http://youtu.be/TVK7wdqSdIw

Janyaa, a 501c(3) organization set up in 2009, focuses on developing creative problem solving skills in rural kids in India. The name, Janyaa, which translates to “life” appropriately fits with the vision of this organization. Please send your feedback on our program, events or the newsletter to Janyaa. We appreciate your support and time.

Read Full Post »

Janyaa Summerbash 2012

August 2012

Rediscover your inner child to support a child

Remember the fun we had playing all the games when growing up India.  The ever exciting Lagori/seven stones, concentration testing lemon and spoon, the physical tug-of-war, musical Antaskhari, funny 4 corners and  playing tambola during family events. We all wish our kids and certainly we could experience the same in the US.

Our idea was born out of this wish. Janyaa’s summer bash was all about celebrating these wonderful games with family, friends and importantly delicious food. It was equally exciting for us to organize this event as was for the participants. Held on August 4th at the Ponderosa park in Sunnyvale, it was an exciting evening which took many of us down the memory lane. Adding to the excitement was Face Painting and Henna, and yes there were plenty of prizes.

We thank all the volunteers and participants for helping us organize and enjoy this event. Janyaa’s goal of “Rediscover your inner child to support a child” was well achieved. We look forward to doing this again and help keep these games alive.

What a wonderful way to support a child.

Please also see our news coverage in The Indian Express, West Coast. A big thanks to The Indian Express team for this well written article. Courtesy: The Indian Express, North American Edition

Click below to enlarge.

Janyaa, a 501c(3) organization set up in 2009, focuses on developing creative problem solving skills in rural kids in India. The name, Janyaa, which translates to “life” appropriately fits with the vision of this organization. Please send your feedback on our program, events or the newsletter to Janyaa. We appreciate your support and time.

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About Janyaa

Understand how Janyaa’s unique program works 

August 2012

The name, Janyaa, which translates to “life”, appropriately fits with the vision of this organization.Janyaa’s vision is to change the lives of under-privileged rural children in India. We do this by equipping school teachers to help children solve everyday problems. Our program ingrains math and science concepts by using ‘learn-by-doing’ techniques. We provide educational kits (including experiments and games) to the schools and train the teachers on the use of these kits. The result of our program is that the kids are creative problem solvers and innovative designers who can lead lives very different than their parents.As envisioned by founder, Venupriya Nadella, the kids so educated by Janyaa are empowered to make progressive changes to their immediate communities and can help advance the socio-economic state of their country.
“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”
― Plato
Most of the schools in rural India lack the infrastructure, facilities and see poor attendance from teachers. The teaching techniques are primarily rote-based and the teachers don’t have nearly enough skills to provide advanced training nor do they have the resources to give adequate attention to their students. The students end up graduating from school with limited potential to be independent and creative thinkers and problem-solvers.
Our program has an empirical approach towards training students in scientific and mathematical concepts. The goal is to design simple experiments to help children identify with concepts using basic material available around them. We start with basic concepts for 6th grade students and these are continued till they reach 10th grade.
We have a team of specialists who design experiments and games for us. We train teachers on using these kits to teach the kids. Examples of the training are as follows:
 Electromagnetism: Use nails, copper wire, cells etc to observe flow of current.
 Electrolysis of water: Use soap box, salt, water, cells etc.
 Respiration is demonstrated using two balloons representing lungs.
 Math concepts like algebraic equations or basic principles of multiplication/division are instilled
using board games.

For each grade we will provide them with the option of choosing a project to be completed by the end of the year. The project goal is set up towards building an end product (ideally, it has a direct impact on them). The students have the opportunity to apply the principles learnt over the years to finish the project.
Our program will thus help the children by imparting confidence, improving their creativity, developing their teamwork skills and promoting lateral thinking among them. This will also motivate the parents to encourage their children to pursue school.

Janyaa, a 501c(3) organization set up in 2009, focuses on developing creative problem solving skills in rural kids in India. The name, Janyaa, which translates to “life” appropriately fits with the vision of this organization. Please send your feedback on our program, events or the newsletter to Janyaa. We appreciate your support and time.

Read Full Post »