Vardhishnu - Social Research & Development Society
Creating an eco-system of safe and joyful spaces of support and learning for children from vulnerable background.
- Bronze Certified 2023
- 80G
- 12A
- CSR-1
About
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Headquarters
Jalgaon, Maharashtra
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Since
2014
According to Census 2011, there are 4.5 million child-laborers between the age of 5-14 in India. These children often live or work on the street and e Read morearn a livelihood to support their families and in the process become vulnerable to exploitation by others and to a variety of physical and moral dangers. Safe and happy childhood is the birth right of every child, yet there are millions for whom it is a long lost dream. We are on a quest to bring this dream back. Vardhishnu aims to create an eco-system of safe and joyful spaces of learning and support for children from vulnerable background. We are achieving this through our 2 flagship programs: Anandghar (A Home of Happiness): By creating safe and joyful spaces through Community Learning Centers called as Anandghar we aim to create spaces for children to learn, connect and reflect. By providing formal and informal skills and education we work as a bridge between children, parents, schools and society at large. Anandghar nurtures reading & writing comprehension, inculcate age-appropriate life-skills, works on health & physcial well-being while investing parents and the communities in the wellbeing of the children to take them out of the clutches of child labor and make them capable of joining main stream schools to cope with the learning process in the school. Anandghar Community Collectives: A unique support cum incubation program of 1 year for grassroot organisations working with children from Tier II & III cities, rural and tribal spaces. Through capacity building workshops, field visits, theme based webinars and monthly follow-up call, we work to build programmatic as well as organisational capabilities of grassroot leaders who have limited or no exposure of changing developmental landscape.
Issue
Think about a 6 year old leaving her home at 5 in the morning to collect waste on the dumping ground. She comes back home after working for almost 7 hours only to eat leftover food from yesterdays dinner and then leave to roam around city with friends. On the dumping ground she always gets cuts and bruises on her hands and legs, sometime she have to run before a dog could bite her or someone abuse her verbally, physically and sexually. Her friends have consume substances like Tobacco, Alcohol & Weed. She is destine to get marry at 13/14 and give birth to her first child even before she could turn 18. She is not alone. - According to Census 2011, there are 4.5 million child-laborers between the age of 5-14 in India. - According to the report of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO, 2014), 32 million Indian children of age up to 13 years have NEVER attended any school, the majority of them belonging to the low-income communities. There is ample evidence that lack of awareness and access to education, poor state of health & hygiene and addiction of substances, vulnerability to verbal, physical and sexual abuse are root causes of the continuing state of problems with children from vulnerable backgrounds.
Cause Area
Impact
Story of Harshal: Harshal was the 1st student of Vardhishnu to pass-out 10th grade board exams in 2018. His father used to sell vegetables outside Anandghar premise. Post 10th he did ITI in Electronics. He went to Pune for about 2 years to gain detail knowledge and experience. Currently Harshal takes individual contract of Electrical fitting of offices and commercial spaces. He recently bought 1 BHK house and is taking complete care of his parents. Sustained efforts with the children and their parents have enabled making a behavioral change and instill importance of education in the community. Among Children: ● 500+ children have been enrolled in mainstream schools with sustenance rate of 92%. ● 40+ children have passed out 10th standard exams. ● Currently 300+ children are learning in 6 different community learning centers in Jalgaon, Chopada & Amalner. ● 95% children quit consuming substances like tobacco, gutkha. ● There is a gradual reduction in health problems. (Avg. HB count in 2022 is 10.5 as compared to 7.5 in 2017) ● There is sense of ownership among children which is visible in how they manage centers at their own. Among Parents: • Initially parents were not much enthusiastic to send their children to Anandghar and schools as well. But today parents are eager to send their children to the schools which are clearly visible in increasing enrollments every year. • Parents are more invested in their child education. The attendance at monthly parents meet is 90%. Among Communities: • The community members are now actively involved in the work of Anandghar. In 2019 community members of Samata Nagar collected donation and constructed a room on a community space, they gave the room to run Anandghar. Similarly, community members of Tantya - Bhil gave us a space to construct a room to run Anandghar. These incidences show the trust of the community and how their investment in a child’s education has been increased in last few years. Among Schools: • Initially schools were not ready to enroll our children due to so many prejudices and biases. It took us some time to break these barriers. Now schools are not only ready to enroll our children but also helping us actively to complete the formalities. • Currently our children are enrolled in 14 different schools and we are taking regular follow-up with 25+ teachers for better sustenance of children.
Programs
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Anandghar (A Home of Happiness)
The idea is to create an eco-system of learning and support for children from vulnerable backgrounds. It is achieved through Community Learning Centers called as Anandghar (A Home of Happiness). These centers act as a bridge between children, parents, schools and society at large. They provide basic formal & informal education and skills to child waste pickers and child labors along with children from economically disadvantaged background and make them capable of joining and sustaining in main stream schools to cope with the learning process in the school.
Objectives:
• Nurturing academic skills: To enable children to read and write fluently in Marathi (local language) and acquire basic numerical aptitude thereby increasing their chances
• Nurturing life skills: Inculcating age-appropriate life-skills
• School Enrolment & sustenance: To enroll and sustain children in main stream schools
•Hygiene & Physical well-being: To inculcate hygienic habits and quit substance abuse -
Anandghar Community Collectives
The idea of this program is inspired from Vardhishnu’ s mission of creating an eco-system of learning and support for children from vulnerable background by collaborating with individuals, institutions and initiatives.
Started in 2020, ACCP is a 1-year unique support cum incubation program designed to share our learning with early-stage organizations or individuals who are willing to / working with children from vulnerable background by providing quality education. We specifically work with early-stage initiatives & individuals working in the field of education with children from economically disadvantaged background, from lower-tier cities / villages with limited or no exposure to the modern-day development sector eco-system.
Programmatic Offerings:
• Residential Workshops: 4 residential workshops of 4 days each.
• Field Visits: 2 Field Visits to each initiative of 2 days each.
•Webinars: 8 theme-based webinars by domain experts
• Monthly catch-up calls
Impact Metrics
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Total No. of Children Impacted Through Anandghar in a Year
Program Name
Anandghar
Year-wise Metrics -
No. of Children Enrolled in Schools
Program Name
Anandghar
Year-wise Metrics -
No of Children Sustained (Already Enrolled) in the Schools
Program Name
Anandghar
Year-wise Metrics -
No. of Children Sustained at the End of Year (Newly Enrolled & Already Enrolled)
Program Name
Anandghar
Year-wise Metrics -
No of Children Taken Out of Child Labor
Program Name
Anandghar
Year-wise Metrics -
No. of Children Left Consuming Substances Like – Gutkha, Tobacco and Others
Program Name
Anandghar
Year-wise Metrics
Leadership Team
Demographics & Structure
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No. of Employees
21-50
M&E
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Internal, External Assessors
No
Policies
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Ethics and Transparency Policies
No
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Formal CEO Oversight & Compensation Policy
No
Political & Religious Declarations
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On Affiliation if any
No
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On Deployment Bias if any
No
Registration Details
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PAN Card
AABTV7504P
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Registration ID
F-15473/Jalgaon
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VO ID / Darpan ID
MH/2018/0199495
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12A
AABTV7504PE20187
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80G
AABTV7504PF20201
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FCRA
Not Available
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CSR Registration Number
CSR00021858
Location
Other Details
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Type & Sub Type
Non-profit
Trust