Aircel a+ a CSR initiative in partnership with Colorss Foundation in Pune, Maharashtra State

Aircel India’s leading telecom service provider has partnered with Colorss Foundationto start an Aircel a+ Center in Pune. This is an Aircel CSR initiative to help bridge the digital divide in India. The initiative will help empower underprivileged children and adolescents with computer literacy and vocational training and provide them with employability skills. Aircel as a socially responsible organization feel education is a primary concern of our nation and therefore, education for the underprivileged is an essential mandate of Aircel’s corporate social responsibility.

The Aircel group is a joint venture between Maxis Communications Berhad of Malaysia and Sindya Securities & Investments Private Limited. Now, the company has completed rollout in all 23 telecom circles.

Colorss Foundation is a registered trust in India working towards the well-being of underprivileged children by integrating arts and technology. Some of the programs conducted by Colorss are ‘One of its kinds’. They help in making these children self-confident and esteemed individuals. Our volunteers come from different corners of the globe; they work with a single motto making Colorss a NGO which is true to its name and deeds. At Colorss we all have a common belief; small steps lead to big changes. Therefore the activities that we perform have a long lasting impression in an individual’s life. Colorss is working in Pune, Maharashtra and in Baroda, Gujarat.

We are grateful to Aircel CSR Team who chose Colorss to initiate its a+ project in Pune for Maharashtra State. We are grateful to Mr. Rajendra Jagtap (acting CEO during our initial discussion) and Mrs. Rachel Koshy, CEO of Pune Cantonment Board who gave us the permission to conduct this project for the benefit of the children in Pune Cantonment Board. Colorss’ is working strongly for the upliftment of school students in the schools based in Pune Cantonment Board. This project will benefit all the students of schools of Pune Cantonment Board. The Aircel a+ center is running at Mahadji Shinde High School, PCB, Wanorie. The computers are provided by Pune Cantonment Board.

The target population for Aircel a+ vocational training is in the age group of 18 – 25 years and are youth who belongs to the underprivileged section of society, displaced communities, disabled, school and college drop outs. The Aircel a+ computer and vocational training program are provided FREE of cost to the all students.. We have a plan of training 480 students withina year.

Aircel a+prioritizes establishing strong linkages between the child’s education background and with Aircel a+ computer and vocational training programe. The course structure for computer training is divided into three parts – Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. The course content has been given by Aircel in partnership with Microsoft ULIP keeping in mind the needs of children getting enrolled in these centers. The industrial and labour market trends clearly indicate the necessity of strengthening of vocational education in India. The Vocational training in the centers are provided by Aircel, a pathway for vocational students to enter higher education streams is the way to move forward.

Please do visit us at www.colorss.org for more information. Follow us at: www.facebook.com/colorssfoundation | www.youtube.com/colorssfoundation

We look forward to see your support coming for this project.

“Who says you can have problems and you can’t smile also?”

 

Definitely you can…I saw and learnt this from these small kids who although came from a weak socioeconomic background, often separated families still had a smile on their faces and zeal to learn and change the way their life was.

While they were introducing themselves I noticed that they had family problems, e. g death of a parent or separated families. Most of the mothers worked in other houses doing the household chores to earn a living or fathers worked in factories or buildings as laborers.

It was an urge to teach small children which made me to join Colorss as a volunteer. My task which seemed to be very easy to me initially turned out to be a challenge for me. I was supposed to take a 45 min class, making children of class 6-9 standard write articles on a few topics.

I started with an article on My Ambition, where I had not only to explain the meaning of ambition to children but also had to assist each of them in framing sentences ,making them spell every word properly and translating their thoughts from Hindi to English. This took 30 min for me and there was hardly any time left for any other activity. It was a kind of surprise for me to see children of 8th grade unable to  spell  “will”  “have”  “doctor”  “because”.  I felt the presence of a loop hole in the education system where students of an English medium school were not well versed in spellings and general English.

I thought of doing it another way. Next day I divided them into teams and told them to ask spellings from the opponent team. This sense of competition made some of them to find difficult words from their text books such as “environment” and learn them. This little effort of the children was encouraging for me. I also introduced some games in the class such as “Bring a thing” where students had to bring specific objects from their teammates such as “A black Reynolds pen or a paper boat”. Although I could not work for a long time as my vacations were going to be over, but it was an experience I would cherish forever.Something definitely needs to be done somewhere and Colorss is an attempt to do it. After joining Colorss as a volunteer, with Anand sir’s support I was more than comfortable and enjoyed every bit of work. Anand sir’s briefing of everything about children, their background, talents, general behavorial tendencies were helpful to know children better. I would like to thank Anand Sir for giving me the opportunity and believing in me. It was something very different and satisfying I could have done in 4 years of my college life. I enjoyed it and learnt a lot from it.

Priyanka Trivedi

VIT Vellore

Volunteered with Colorss at Pune