kotak education foudation - n.g.o project

A PROJECT REPORT ON

NGO INTERNSHIP IN KOTAK EDUCATION FOUNDATION, MUMBAI,

FROM 10TH NOVEMBER TO 22ND NOVEMBER

SUBMITTED BY:

UTKARSH VERMA

MARKETING-I, ROLL NO: 114

APP ID: PGDM-1332

BATCH-2014-16

FACULTY GUIDE: PROF VENI NAIR

ITM NAVI MUMBAI

SUMMARY

This report is an account of my association with Kotak Education Foundation, along with

other students of ITM, for two weeks (from 10th November to 22nd November, 2014). It

chronicles all our activities as a team of volunteer interns for Kotak Education Foundation during

the aforementioned period.

Kotak Education Foundation (KEF), an NGO formed in 2007 by Mr.Uday Kotak ( Vice

Chairman and Managing Director, Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd), Mrs.Pallavi Kotak and

Mr.Shivaji Dam (Former Director , Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd) , caters to the education and

livelihood needs of the underprivileged section of the society.

In the areas of education KEF has partnered with 30 schools catering to underprivileged students.

In the schools, the foundation teaches spoken English to students of class 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th.

The spoken English program is supported by other programs such as Health, Parenting, School

Teacher's and Principal Development and Scholarship.

The livelihood program on the other hand caters to youth in the age group of 18 to 25. The

Foundation conducts the vocational training program for the students for a period of 3 months in

different domains and then places them in a suitable job with various corporates such as

Shopper's Stop, Westside, and KFC. etc..

In its endeavour the foundation is supported to a very large extent by volunteers in both the

programs. Currently we are looking for students volunteers for our spoken English Program to

interact with students of 9th class across 3 of our partner schools.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Vandana Tripathy Ma’am and Shrilaja Palur

Ma’am In-charge, Social Responsibility Department, ITM for giving me this opportunity of

doing my NGO internship with dedicated NGOs like Kotak Education Foundation. The

experience was awesome and the learnings and takeaways from the internship will remain with

me forever, as they made me revisit my virtues and sense of humanity.

I sincerely thank Nisha Dixit of Kotak Education Foundation for providing me the path.

And also ITM Navi Mumbai.

ABBREVIATIONS

NGO: Non-Government Organisations

KEF : Kotak Education Foundation

CONTENTS PAGE

• TITLE PAGE 1

• SUMMARY 2

• ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 3

• ABBREVIATIONS 4

• CONTENTS 5

• INTRODUCTION 6-8

• KOTAK EDUCATION FOUNDATION

• ACTIVITIES UNDERTAKEN BY NGO 9

• STUDENT PROJECT ACTIVITIES 10-13

• LEARNINGS ACCUMULATED 14

• CONCLUSION 15-17

INTRODUCTION

About NGO:

Since 2007, KEF has worked in two streams - Education and Livelihood.

The mission to improve the quality of education in India and ensure that all children not only attend but

also thrive in school is being accomplished by working in collaboration with the government, local

communities, parents, teachers, volunteers, and civil society members. Our programmes aim to

supplement rather than replace governmental efforts. They are implemented on a large scale to not only

reach as many children as possible, but also to create an adoptable demonstration model for state

governments.

In the former, it has partnered with over a dozen schools with over 20000 students from under-

privileged backgrounds in urban and rural areas in Mumbai, Thane and Raigad districts and

assist them in training the trainers (school-teachers), working with the children on enhancing

their English speaking skills, Life-skills, Health, hygiene and nutrition and working with parents

to assist their children.

In the latter, it runs vocation-oriented training for youth from the underprivileged class of society

- in the domains of Hospitality, Customer Relations & Sales and ITES. It assists in job-

placement through tie-ups with corporates in upwardly mobile jobs. Till March 2011, over 3200

youth have been trained and over 2500 placed in jobs.

Kotak Mahindra Bank, along with the employees of the group, supports CSR initiatives of

various NGOs through several programmes. We have been financially supporting the

philanthropic activities of Kotak Education Foundation (KEF) including the foundation’s

flagship initiatives - Kotak Unnati(a vocational training programme for school and college drop-

outs) and Kotak Udaan(a special scholarship offered for marginalized children)

Fund Usage:

The projects are entirely funded by trustees, and no external funding is sought. The purpose of

registering is to create awareness

Impact:

Haseena Shiekh: The aspirant from Bhandup centre lives in from Khindipada, Her father is

roadside vendor. She is separated from her husband.

Being a conservative family, her parents were reluctant to allow her to work. After a series of

counseling they agreed. She was trained in Customer Service & Retail course for 3 months. The

aspirant presently works at the Adidas store at Ghatkopar, she has a monthly earning of Rs. 7000

+ Incentive. Now, in her spare time, she helps the facilitators at the Bhandup centre voluntarily

to mobilise more like her

She says "It was impossible for a below SSC student to get a job at such a elite place like

Bandra". She enjoys working there, sometimes even meeting her favorite film stars.

EMPLOYEE VOLUNTEERING:

In 2011, They undertook the activity of house building, in association with Habitat for

Humanity, where employees volunteered to build decent, affordable homes for local families in

need of urgent shelter.

Annually, on Kotak Mahindra group’s Foundation Day – November 21, employees

across the group have been participating in a blood donation campaigns, held across major

offices of the group across India.

In order to promote the culture of employee volunteering, we conduct help drives

annually through Goonj, wherein employees can donate anything that can be reused like old

clothes, utensils, books, toys, etc.

During Christmas, various NGOs set up gift stalls at our offices selling products made by

the underprivileged members of the society.

They have been successfully running the Payroll Giving Programme for the past 2 years.

Over 800 employees from the Bank and Group companies are part of the ‘Kotak Mahindra

Payroll Giving Programme’ that supports 6 NGOs - The Akanksha Foundation, Cancer Patients

Aid Association, National Association for the Blind, Dignity Foundation, Make-A-Wish

Foundation of India, SOPAN (Society of Parents of Children with Autistic Disorders).

ACTIVITIES UNDERTAKEN BY NGO:

Outreach focuses on promoting quality Education to the underprivileged sections of the society.

School Teachers Enrichment Program (STEP).

Spoken English Program.

Health and Nutrition.

Scholarships and Training.

Principals Enrichment Program (PREP).

Parents Intervention Program (PIP).

Kotak Unnati.

Scholarship schemes for meritorious students from economically weaker sections of the Society.

STUDENT PROJECT ACTIVITIES:

Our project clearly focuses on education of children. I was mainly given the task of teaching to the

secondary section i.e. to class 8, class 9, and class 10. Different schools were allocated to me like Narayan

Guru High School in Chembur, National High School in Vikhroli, Shri Sai vidalaya in Mankhurd, Milind

Vidalaya in Powai. My basic experience with the students was very good and all the students enjoyed my

company. However the major problem was English as a way of communication. So they did not wanted

to conversate in English. To them English was also taught in Marathi so it was a major problem for me to

solve. The areas were slum area and the task was to teach underpriviledged students of that area. The

schools were Government affiliated. The students were from different medium like Hindi, Marathi and

Urdu. It was difficult task to communicate with them as they were not used to English language.

The aim of Kotak education foundation was to teach the teachers of different schools of Vernacular

medium appropriate skills and techniques required to learn English language and reciprocate the same to

the students.

The skills that are being taught to the teachers are as follows:

• Pronunciation

• Grammar

• Usage of tenses

• Art of expressing and enacting

Specially this was the case with Narayan Guru school. The kids of class 9th and class 10th were not able to

form a correct sentence in English. I tried to conduct different activities with them such as mock interview

of any famous personality. At first they were a little hesitated but still they tried to speak English. Class

9th and class 10th students enjoyed Mathematics and Algebra classes with me.

The condition was same in National High School. But the kids were interactive there. They enjoyed

different activities done with them like solving mathematics, various recreational activities were also

suggested by them to which the kids enjoyed and this helped me to teach them better. The kids wanted me

to come back to take their classes. The principal there also gave me positive feedback by interacting with

the class.

DATE SCHOOL PLACE TIME

IN

TIME

OUT

SUBJECT CLASS

10-11-

2014

Dyansadhana

School

Govandi 12:30 17:30 English

Science

Maths

1, 3, 9.

11-11-

2014

Dyansadhana

School


Maths

Science

2,3,4

12-11-

2014

Dyansadhana

School


Algebra

3rd , 9th

13-11-

2014

Dyansadhana

School


Matha

4th 5th 8th

14-11-

2014

K.E.F head

Office

Deonar 13:00 17:00 - -

15-11-

2014

Milind

Vidyalaya

Powai 12:00 18:00 Visit with

students to

Kotak Bank and

MacDonald’s(for

teaching them

behaviour)

9

At Shri Sai High School we have to teach students of class 9th each and every detail about resume

writing. How, why, when to write a resume.What is the format of writing a resume.

The most favourite of the school was Milind Vidyalaya where we have to assist the teachers of the

school along with teachers of Kotak Education Foundation. We have to visit Kotak bank and

MacDonald’s for teaching students about bank, account opening and how to behave in a mall and teach

them etiquettes and manner. We took care of 74 children in which 5 students were under supervision.

We enjoyed there along with the teachers and students.

Along with all the teaching I was also sent to different schools for data collection of the students

associated with Kotak under their Unnati program. I have to collect their entire marks in all their

subjects and check their attendance whether those students are punctual in class or not. Most of the

students I noticed passed with very good marks which implies that Kotak are successful in their mission.

The reason behind data collection task which was assigned to us was to get the data regarding various

schools which are lacking behind in terms of basic facilities and infrastructure (Teaching staff as well).

DATE SCHOOL PLACE TIME IN TIME

OUT

SUBJECT CLASS

17-11-2014 Kotak

Foundation

Head Office

Deonar 11:00 16:00 DATA

Collection

from Milind

Vidalya

8th 9th

18-11-2014 Dyansadhana

School


Algebra

Maths

2nd 3rd , 9th


School


Maths

3rd 4th 6th 7th


School


Algebra

Maths

4th 7th 9th

22-11-2014 Milind

Vidyalay Powai 8:45 11:00 Resume

writing,

Story telling

8th

9th

Overall the whole teaching experience brought some changes in me in a positive way e.g. it made me

come across a rural BHARATH residing inside INDIA.

Hope my entire effort makes some positive change and Contribute something to every child for their

better future.

LEARNINGS:

We have learnt so many things from this CSR and its team members such as punctuality, dedication of

work and work loving attitude .From teaching we learnt unity, managing skills, responsibility, patience

etc.

. KEF gives opportunity to up skilling school teachers in Spoken English, Pedagogy, IT and Personality

Development so that the teachers are able to deliver the content in a better and effective manner. KEF

conducts workshops with Principals to improve School Management. The major objective was to expose

students to English language and make them speak as much as possible which would build up their

problem solving ability and have a brainstorming in English.

In this span of time there were many things that each one of us would want to do for the society and also

bring in a change in oneself as well as the society. I could find out how these students from the

underprivileged families struggled to learn and understand English and how they were only being used to

their own language as they did not have much exposure towards the language. I was able to notice how

these students thought English as a foreign language. I also observed different students who had the ease

towards learning English and communicating in that language. Even with the school infrastructure,

management and surroundings been in the worst conditions there were students coming from various

places to learn and acquire immense knowledge that the school as well as the teachers provided them.

School teachers were unable to communicate or deliver themselves in simple English language as they

were only been acquainted with vernacular language (Marathi) as per the rules created by the government.

Therefore there has to be a vast medium, created in the society about the importance of english language

in today’s world. More focus should be on the exposure towards english rather than vernacular medium

so that these first generation students of the underpriviledged families come out of their shell and excel in

their life.

CONCLUSION:

We are thankful to Kotak Education Foundation team members who were very supportive to us and in

future also we would like to work with them. It was a challenging task and we have performed it to the

best of our capabilities. It helped us in many ways in order to make us a better individual. We sincerely

express our gratitude towards our NGO guide Ms.Nisha Dixit mam for providing this opportunity and

also for being there with us by clearing our doubts and helping us in all possible way.

Student Intervention Project (SIP)

• Teaching students Spoken English before/after school hours

• Increasing exposure to English for students through outside-class activities

Health and Nutrition

• Holding medical check-up camps for vision for all students and anemia for all girls (Class 8 & 9)

Deworming of all students

• Sensitizing about Sex Education and HIV/AIDS (Class 8 & 9)

Mentoring and Scholarships

• For academically bright students for Class 11 and 12

• For students having distressed backgrounds for Class 8, 9 & 10

Parents Intervention Program (PIP)

Explain the importance of education to reduce high drop-out rates

• Parental support for education

• Create awareness about Health, Hygiene and Diet

• Creation of Study circles to provide space for the students to study

• Parents Action Committees formed to act as links between KEF and the community

• Capacity building of parents through workshops

(The PIP is also active in the Kotak Unnati project)

School Teachers Enrichment Program (STEP)

• Impart training to Primary and Secondary school teachers in Spoken English, Personality

Development, IT Skills, Teaching Academic English, Science and Maths to Vernacular and Semi-English

students, so as to enhance their skill sets and make them more effective teachers.

• Creating awareness about relevant management and administrative practices and processes for

Principals

LIVELIHOOD (Kotak Unnati):

Providing vocational training to youth who are school/college dropouts and from underprivileged families

and assist them in placement in upwardly mobile jobs at remuneration which will bring the family above

poverty line.

kotak education foudation - n.g.o project

Government & Nonprofit