Blog

Today, Atma held a farewell lunch for Atma volunteer Jay. Jay came to Atma from Hong Kong and has been volunteering with Atma Graduated Partner CHIP over the past three months. Stay tuned for Jay’s blog post about his Atma experience!

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What is an Atma Partnership?

An Atma Partnership is a three year collaborative process between Atma and a dynamic NGO working in education in Mumbai. For an Atma Partnership to be effective in reaching its goal of creating Quality Education for underprivileged children, it’s imperative for us to identify the right NGOs to partner with.

The Pre-Partnership process is designed to give a snapshot of the potential partner NGO, where it is in its organisational life cycle, and whether they are ready fto bring about change that will help to strengthen their organisation and expand their programs.

Photos by Kainaz Amaria

The Pre-Partnership Process comprises 4 steps.

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Atma is excited to collaborate with Atma Partner, The Foundation for Mother and Child Health (FMCH) in creating their organisational strategy for the upcoming year.  We have spent the past two days this week with FMCH conducting strategy sessions: these have resulted in the strengthening of their team objectives and shared mission for the holistic development of children and mothers. Atma looks forward to reporting FMCH’s continued success.

Rabiya is 12 years old, and the best English student in her class. Since becoming a student at CHILDReach, an Atma Partner school, Rabiya has been able to excel in subjects that were previously inaccessible to her. This is because CHILDReach offers Rabiya a classroom environment and specialized attention that supports her unique learning style.

Photo by Neha Kumthekar (more…)

On June 20^th, Atma Partner Masoom hosted a textbook distribution event at Sahakar night school. That evening, 25 Masoom students from standards 8 to 10 received notebooks and textbooks for their studies.

Masoom supports night schools in Mumbai by creating high quality educational environments and providing a variety of supplementary resources to night school students. These resources include mobile science labs, libraries, enriched curriculums, and of course, textbooks.

Photo by a Masoom Volunteer

Masoom has been an Atma Partner since 2009. Over the course of the Atma-Masoom Partnership, Atma has supported Masoom in multiple areas of their organizational development. Atma has helped Masoom to grow in areas of HR by engaging two new dynamic staff members, in branding by developing Masoom’s logo and website, and in marketing by creating a promotional film.

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By Hayley Bolding, Atma Founder

At Atma we believe that any “issue” an organization faces is merely a challenge, and that having a “challenge” rather than “problem” focused outlook encourages innovative solutions towards helping the organization to grow.

Founded to tackle the educational challenges faced by Mumbai’s underprivileged, Atma recognizes that the greatest impact is in building capacity within the key people and organizations creating change in India – the innovative NGOs that are our Atma Partners.

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In 2010 Emily Quinan came to India for the first time from Canada on an AIESEC internship to teach as a volunteer at a school for children with special needs in Kerala. Through this experience, Emily glimpsed the challenges faced by the NGO sector in India. She also realized that although teaching for a short period was a rewarding experience, her time in Kerala didn’t have a long term impact on the NGO or the community.

So, when Emily graduated with a BA in psychology from McGill University, she began looking for a way to engage in capacity building that would have a more lasting impact. “I was drawn to what Atma does because I realised that there are so many NGOs in India that aren’t running to the best of their ability,” said Emily Quinan of her initial attraction to working with Atma.  Emily saw the potential of NGOs to facilitate change, but also observed that organisations often need someone to devote their time and expertise to take projects ahead. Emily was also looking for an opportunity to gain professional experience and use her expertise in the field of education. Before coming to India, Emily had done significant research in the fields of special education, effective motivation and praise, and teaching methods for children with special needs. Based on her research in the Interpersonal Relationships lab and Language and Memory lab at McGill,her background working with children with learning difficulties and her interest in curriculum design, Emily was paired with Atma Partner CHILDReach to develop an English Curriculum for children with learning difficulties.

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Photograph by Annemarijn Boersma

Atma Graduated Partner CHIP works in BMC schools in Mumbai to improve the whole experience of each student, focusing on classroom infrastructure and educational offerings. CHIP is currently expanding its team: they are looking for dynamic, motivated professionals to work in the areas of accounting, office administration and resource management. Write to CHIP at chip.mumbai@gmail.com for full job descriptions.

After finishing her BA in International Business, Simran Daryanani began considering working in the field of development. She knew that her classroom studies could only take her so far, and was looking for an opportunity to use her skills on the ground and gain professional experience. Her search for real hands-on social sector experience brought her to Atma.

In April, Simran finished a six-month Atma volunteership. Simran assisted with organisational development at Atma’s newest partner, the Foundation for Mother and Child Health (FMCH).FMCH aims to improve early childhood development by providing underprivileged communities with health and nutrition education as well as interventions such as clinics and nutrition supplement programs.

Photo by Jacek Rezsko

At FMCH, Simran found a challenging volunteer opportunity: one that allowed her to truly work on the ground in the strategic planning and programs of an NGO.

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A newly released book “Poor Economics” by renowned economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo compiles economic studies investigating some of the most challenging development issues of our time.

At Atma, we address the issue of quality education in India through our daily efforts to strengthen NGOs in this field. Esther and Abhijit address the issue of quality education by taking a critical look at the effectiveness of social efforts in education. What works? What does not work? The practitioners we work with every day understand this from the reality of their experience, working in difficult social and political environments. So what do Ether and Abhijit say that reflects the insight our partners have developed from their own years in the field?

One study by Abhijit Banerjee shows that mobilizing communities to improve education is not as simple as it seems. “Pitfalls of participatory programs: evidence from a randomized evaluation in education in India”[1] looks at the impact of a program pilotedby Pratham designed to mobilize communities in order to support the improvement of the quality of education. By providing information to communities, like the quote below, Pratham hoped to shock communities into mobilizing through Village Education Committees (VEC), who hold the power to manage educational entities, including hiring and firing local school staff.

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