Pratham Book's library-in-a-classroom now in Dahanu

Vidya and Rati do a book-duet reading at Mussalpada school .

On 23 December 2013, Mitra Foundation opened two new libraries for Adivasi students of Amchi Shalas of Mussalpada and Ambatpada hamlets in  Waki village of Dahanu Taluka in Maharashtra.

Mitra Foundation was  1 of the 22 organisations that received 3 sets of  'Library-in-a-classroom' a mobile collection of 125 Marathi  books for 4-6 years olds, as a grant from Pratham Books..

Smt. Nanda Dhak, the headmistress of the Musalpada Amchi Shala and her 40 students and two teachers  welcomed the Mitra team with loud applause and heartily shouted good morning greetings.

After brief introduction by Seema , Mitra Foundation's library coordinator, Maya Vanbaugh (10) and Sita (5) our young volunteers for the day, presented the 'library in a classroom' to the students. After receiving the books, Sunita and Sunil  read two books from the book collection followed by a  Seema's story reading session. All the children listened to the readings with great interest. But it was Sita who stole the show with the performance of her two delightful renditions of her 'Masala' and 'Phool' songs,  which the students enjoyed so much that they made her sing it again and joined the chorus.

Neelam Patil and her students pose with Pratham library in a classroom kit at Ambatpada

Later at Ambatpada Amchi Shala, Smt. Neelam Patil and her brood of 20 students received the books with great excitement and a celebratory song. We were informed by Smt. Patil that this is the first time the school has received books of any kind and was looking forward to expanding the library.

Mitras have made a commitment at both the schools that it will regularly monitor the progress of the reading habits of students and in 2014 increase the number of books in both the libraries.

Inspired by Tarabai Modak and Anuthai Wagh

Today, Mitra foundation opened doors to the first ever library of books for 500 Adivasi students from the far-flung tribal hamlets of Dahanu studying at the Ashram Shala at Kosbad Hills run by Deccan Education society.

After receiving enthusiastic response to Mitra’s library initiative at Zarli Primary school (2008) and Ganjad Primary School ( 2010) in Dahanu, Mitras have been in dialogue with the students, teacher and management of the Kosbad Ashram Shala to lay foundations for a library and reading program that will have more books, will reach out to more students and will be part of a larger reading and learning program.

Mitras are excited because the school has been able to dedicate a room for the library ( yeah, the Zharli and Ganjad schools are so small, we run our library out of a packed cupboard) and more importantly the Principals of both Primary and Secondary school have committed to dedicating a young teacher for the reading and learning program that Mitra will run at the school.

The Kosbad Ashram Shala , like all the other schools, colleges and vocational institutions in the Kosbad-Bordi stretch , is known for it's pioneering and progressive approach for educating the Adivasi students.

In fact at the inauguration today we discovered from Mr.Damankar, former Principal of the Kosbad schools, that Angan wadi (play schools for underprivileged children ) and Ashram shala (residential schools for tribal students) both concepts were conceived , tested and adapted based on experiments done in Kosbad Hills by the famous educationists and icons of women's emancipation Tarabai Modak and Anutai Wagh.

Tarabai and then later Anutai made Kosbad their home and dedicated their lives to the education and development of the local adivasi population.

Mitras are mighty proud to be able to build on the legacy of the great ladies and why lie, our eyes were kinda moist, when the ribbon was cut, under a brand new sign proclaiming ' Granthalaya', at todays colourful program conceived by students and attended by former staff and students, distinguished Dahanu residents and Panchayat members, local journalists and even the local police.

All of you are welcome to come read with us at Mitra Library at Kosbad School. If you want to donate books, cupboards, or even time - just write to choices@mitrafoundation.org and we will give you lot of choices to share our joy, to join our journey, to dance the Warli dance.

Mitra Library @ Ashram Shala opening on 19 Feb 2012

Mitra Library to go Solar

Education is at the core of Mitra’s work. Literacy is, therefore, one of the main thrusts of our program development.

In July 2008, a pilot library project was initiated at a government run primary school in the Warli hamlet of Jarlipada in Dahanu.

Mitra Library was started to help inculcate and encourage reading habits among children who never had the opportunity to read anything more than their school text books.

This co-ed school consists of 150 students in classes up to 7^th standard. Our senior Mitra, Mr. Shashikant Kale , a retired senior citizen of Dahanu, in consultation with the school teachers, built up a list of extracurricular reading material suitable for the children.

The Mitra library was inaugurated with 250 carefully selected books in Marathi and Hindi along with stationery and art & craft material. The Library was soon expanded by 60 books, sourced online from Tulika publishers. These delightful, beautifully illustrated books included Marathi-English and Hindi-English bilingual ones thus fulfilling the teachers’ desire to improve the children’s English reading and learning skills.

The school donated a cupboard to store the educational material and designated special library time into their daily school schedule. The teachers have set up a system to monitor the reading habits of the students along with their reading preferences. This information will enable us to understand the children’s needs and likes which in turn will help improve the existing and future Mitra libraries.

Within three months of initiating the library, the teachers have reported a significant progress among the children, who are enjoying reading time along with the opportunity of being creative in arts and crafts.

Mitra Foundation would like to thank Mr. Kale and the teachers of Jharlipada school for devoting their time for this project with such enthusiasm.

Following the success of our first library, Mitra Foundation is now working on a project of expanding the library programme to more hamlets in Dahanu.

As most of these hamlets do not have access to electricity, Mitra foundation will provide solar lighting to allow students to use the library after dusk .

For more information and donations for the Mitra Solar Library project, write to mitra.energy@gmail.com

The Boy who harnessed wind

Read the amazing story of William Kamkwamba here .

Wanted - Small Change!

From Mitra's spring newsletter:
The world is changing faster than Mitras anticipated two years ago, when we set out to raise an ‘energy conscience’ amongst young people and their parents, at schools, campuses and community gatherings.
Not everyone is convinced about the imminent threat of devastation due to climate change but they are more aware of the phenomenon and that helps.
Mitras have observed genuine interest amongst the young, to find ways of living a better, sustainable and useful lifestyle.
Mitras spent a large time of last year interacting with individuals and institutions that are working with the lesser privileged amongst the urban poor and in far flung hamlets.
As a result of our interventions we are slowly building a small but diverse community of renewable energy users who demonstrate that it is possible to lead better sustainable and useful lifestyles.
Key to that goal is of course, education. A holistic understanding of the cause and effect of human activities and ways of reducing our negative impact on society and the environment.
Mitras are pleased to share, with you, a new project in our current battery of carbon neutral campus program.
A library in a tribal school for warli children in Dahanu, Maharashtra. We are so proud of it!
Our update on carbon neutral campus program on page 2 clearly shows the increased awareness and demand for change.
Small change, we believe, is a good good starting point.
Interestingly, small change is all what we got for our fund raising efforts this year.
An area of our work that certainly needs to change.
So, Mitras, through this news letter, is inviting you to chip in, give, donate, small change or a big cheque, but please do.

It will help.

TO READ THE WHOLE NEWSLETTER CLICK ON SPRING 2009 (Newsletter section in sidebar)

Adarsh (ka) Ghar – Smart Home in Bangalore.

Adarsh's home

Mitras like to practice what they preach. Admittedly, it is difficult, yeah, but we try, because we know every little positive action matters.

And now Adarsh, our carbon free neutral campus program coordinator, has gone all the way by building a smart house for himself.

Powered by the wind and sun, Adarsh’s new house in Bangalore is the best example of how combination of renewable energy and energy efficiency can provide uninterrupted electricity for your daily household needs.

Adarsh’s parents were initially hesitant about the idea of having a 28 foot tall wind turbine on their roof, skeptical about solar panels, dubious about the LED lighting and shocked at the costs involved.

They had no problem with installing a solar water heater, but investing in an integrated renewable energy system was as alien an idea as the mobile phone was 5 years ago.

Adarsh gave them a tour of installations he has done as part of Mitra’s carbon neutral campus program. He did the investment vs. monthly bill calculations to convince them.

But what finally did the trick was the promise of 'uninterrupted' power supply.

You see Senior Mr. Vansay is a big sports-tv addict. His biggest irritation in his retired years is the power cuts imposed by Bescom during cricket matches.

Adarsh installed a 650 watts wind turbine and an array of solar panels rated at 640 watts that would give him 2.5 kw of power for lights, fans and other appliances (including TV, efficient kitchen appliances and washing machine) on his roof. He bought a 48 volt 360ah battery to store the power generated by the wind turbine and solar panels. And most importantly he got a local supplier to design special LED lights for his house.

Yeah, we don’t like them incandescent and we absolutely think that the CFL bulb is a loser’s option. The 120 watts of LED lighting is enough to light up the house (see picture) and consumes 4 times less of juice from the batteries than those silly CFL bulbs would have.

It took 2 days for Adarsh to install the turbine, the panels and a 200 litre solar water heater on the roof. A week to install his specially designed LED bulbs. And 2 months to check and double check before he announced Mission Successful.

Calling all Daddies!

The Polar Ice sheet is facing unprecedented thinning, sea-level rise is threatening the very survival of coastal communities but there is no reduction in green house gas emissions, in fact it is accelerating every day, every month, every year.
Mitra Foundation is calling daddies (and mommies) to do their bit. Talk to your children. Tell them how your lifestyle has threatened the very survival of the future generations. Apologise. And then find out what you can do. Time is running out. And the tide is closing in. Download the postcard on the right and post it to your friends, relatives, office colleagues. Enlist!

Nandgaon gets second Solar Study Center

Press Release

Pune, 10^th May 2008: Peepal Foundation, a Pune based initiative of socially conscious professionals have been working relentlessly for over five years to bring hope and cheer in lives of under privileged children and senior citizens, while empowering them to be independent and self-sufficient by providing them with basic opportunity and services to fulfill their ambitions.

Observing the enthusiasm and commitment with which the Jambulne community has been using the Solar Study Center, Peepal Foundation have decided to set up a second such Center in Nandgaon village again located in Lonavla taluka. The center will help the students in their studies, as well as help the community with literacy programmes and livelihood training skills for women.

The concept of Solar Study Centers pioneered by Mitra Foundation, Bangalore is in line with their objective of promoting environment friendly, socially just and sustainable solutions. The Solar Study Center at Jambulne was a pilot project. The acceptance and faith reposed in this decentralised renewable energy system by the community has encouraged us to replicate this concept, thereby providing the basic electricity requirement for educational purposes and general community development.

The Solar Study Center at Nandgaon village is sponsored by WNS Global Services and British Gas and will benefit over 60 students.

“Such projects provide an opportunity for British Gas employees, a part of the Centrica Group based in India, to ally with our offshore partners, Peepal Foundation, WNS and EXL to contribute towards social causes. Our objectives are to support projects which are cost-effective and environment friendly which will in return help communities progress, develop and become self-sufficient,” said Christine Tate, Offshore Operations Manager - Centrica Plc.

Calls for Carbon Neutral Campus Program 2008-2009

Mitra Foundation is proud to announce the opening of two Solar Study Centers in remote off-grid villages of Maharashtra, hosting a series of climate change awareness events in Tamilnadu and most importantly facilitating installation of about 5 kW of renewable energy at a residential school in Karnataka in the first year of our Carbon Neutral Campus program.

Mitra foundation invites schools and educational institutions in Pune, Chennai and Bangalore for registration for 2008-2009 Carbon Neutral Campus program by July 5, 2008.

Two modules of informative and experiment based programs have been specially developed in line with the syllabus for classes IX and XI. We have already reached over 600 students at five institutions with the aid of audiovisual presentations and field visits to renewable energy park.

The 2008-09 program includes a non-power point presentation, field visits to renewable energy production facilities or parks, energy audits at campuses and recommendation to institutions for collective measures for reducing a campus’s carbon footprint.

We also develop special programs in consultation with school faculties on Climate change, renewable energy, energy efficiency for specific syllabus or program requirement of students.

Deadline for applications : 5 July 2008.

Contact : choices@mitrafoundation.org

Centre for Learning gets high on wind-energy

Yesterday evening, there was applause by students and staff when Adarsh finally clambered down the 65 feet high pole after attaching the blades and hub on the 650 watts wind turbine.

A little later, there were loud cheers and more applause when the turbine adjusted its tail and the blades picked up its first gust of wind and rotated to produce a crackle of electric energy.

The students were busy at their studies this morning when Seema helped put finishing touches to the wiring of the heart of the system, the charge controllers and switchboards. But Mitras quietly applauded and cheered ourselves for a job done, well done.

Together with a spanking new photo-voltaic solar system and a refurbished existing pv solar system, the wind turbine will produce almost 3.5 kw that will provide uninterrupted power supply to all dormitories and the computer lab.

With solar water heating systems already installed at all dorms and the guest house, this is a big, almost there, step for Centre for Learning to get off the grid, be self sufficient and make a huge difference to the way its students perceive energy. And environment. And their role in it.

It is hard to believe it was less than 20 months ago that the Centre for Learning community undertook the ‘Walk to School’ to raise awareness and funds to achieve their objective of installing clean, green, renewable energy sources at their campus.

Mitras are proud of having walked with them so far and look forward to helping them fulfilling their wish of self-sufficiency in near future. Honge oil pressing machine anyone?

Mitras wishes the cheerful CFL community, a happy Holi, a happy Navroz, a happy Id-E-Milad, a happy Easter, and a very very happy Mela celebrations this weekend. And to you too.

Peepal and Mitra bring light to Jambulne school

On 23rd February 2008, Vasti shala, a tiny school in the small off-grid hamlet of Jambulne (Devgarh) near Pune, became the first Solar Study Center thanks to the efforts of our partners Peepal Foundation, a bunch of professionals working relentlessly to empower the under privileged.

The solar lighting system, Venus, gifted by Centrica Plc, will provide sufficient light for four hours after dusk for about 40 students of this hamlet to study, revise and prepare for important examinations. Peepal Foundation that holds educational and cultural programmes for the less fortunate students in Pune and Senior citizens also plans to use the Solar Study Center to run literacy and livelihood programmes for children and women when the center is not being used by the students.

Mitras will monitor this pilot project for six months for efficacy and efficiency and then replicate it to more such schools and community centers in off grid villages in the hinterlands of the country. Our objective of course is to empower with the right power, in this case solar power, but where possible we hope to use other renewable energy technologies suitable for local conditions.

Besides thanking the folks at Peepal Foundation for helping us realise the first project of our Solar Study Center concept, we will also take the opportunity to convey our best wishes and more power to Vineet Kharat, the force behind Peepal, on his birthday that happily enough coincided with the date of the installation.