Charity Admin, Author at Operation Sahay Foundation

Eliminating Learning Poverty

November 27, 2019 Charity Admin Education

Madapatna Grama, near Begur, is located 40 km South of Mysore. It is a quiet village dependant on farm income. As in other places, farm dependence exposes the farmer families to climatic vagaries. Crops fail at times, hopes get dashed! The families and children’s studies are affected.

For a child in rural settings, the joy of being in school, quality of academic performance and encouragement from home and school matters. It enables them carry-on to senior school and move to higher education. Unlike their city-school going counterparts, they are not blessed with proper academic resources and amenities. So they need proper nurturing to be confident and competant. If not, the stigma of being a “small town” person and discouragement could gradually set in.

In rural areas, parents find it difficult to give educational support at home. Local assistance is rarely available. Even if available, for many it is not affordable. As a result, children find it difficult to meet the learning targets. If they don’t get help at the right time in their school life, the pathway to higher education and even the ability to read, write and learn will be impacted. Therefore the isuue is something beyond ensuring regular attendance.

How can we help them? What would inspire them to think beyond to achieve a better life and a fulfilling future? What can uplift them to be successful and contribute to the development of their village?

OSF’s Solution – Sahay Shiksha Centres

Observing the imminent need for academic aid for these children, we launched “Sahay Shiksha Centre” at Madapatna in July 2019.

How Can You Help.

Contribute an amount of your choice

OSF aims to collect, Rs.1,88,000/- which is the estimated annual expenses to run this centre. What does the estimate include? Teachers’ salary, study materials and essentials like stationary. Per child, the expenses will be Rs.470 per month and it will cover assistance for all subjects, English capability building, personality dev activities. The program will run for 10 months in a academic year.

MAKE A DONATION

Your donation will serve to gift quality education from Madapatna Sahay Shiksha Centre! Note that at OSF, none of the directors take remuneration.

Engage and Encourage

Plan a visit to the centre on one of the weekday evenings. Share with them your experiences, share thoughts on career roadmap for their future, teach a skill or game, lend some learning tips. Your presence will be invaluable.

Balancing Weighing Imbalance

January 11, 2020 Charity Admin Agriculture

In Narayanpatna block of Odisha, farmers from Tentulipadar and Bijaghati Mandal (Gram Panchayats) villages used to sell their farm products in the Narayanpatna market. Each farmer visits the weekly market with his produce four times a month on an average.

During each visit, they carry 30 to 50 kg harvested products .Weighing is done at the market. They suspected a tampered weighing machine was being used by the middlemen. This continued for many years. As most of the farmers are illiterate, they couldn’t verify or resolve this.

OSF, while working on the School Kit project to encourage attendance in schools at the region, we learned about this issue and planned a simple intervention. 2 weighing scales of 100 Kg capacity were presented to the farmers group. Village youth are assigned the responsibility to weigh the farm products for every farmer. The weight is recorded on a slip and the farmer presents it at the Mandi. The middlemen are now forced to go by the actual weight.

The benefit reaches about 450 families. Mr. Gopi Bingadika a farmer in the region says “In a month, I get an additional Rs.50-100, which is a big thing for my family.” This works out to approximately Rs.27,000 worth of savings to the community in a month.

Closure to School Closure Plans

October 11, 2019 Charity Admin Education

“This school has less than 20 kids now. There’s an order to shut the school as the number is well below the cut-off level fixed by the Government. Can you do something? I see that you arranged for good School Kits through OSF in few other schools. If you can do a distribution here, maybe, we can encourage the kids as a last attempt to continue schooling.” These were the words of Mr.Niranjan Bagha of Narayanpatna education block.

Panabadi Village is a quiet community of 65 families, who are passionate farmers in the mountains. They practice slash and burn agriculture. The entire family including children participate. Parents therefore don’t see much value in schooling.

OSF arranged and distributed the School kits at a meeting iwhich was well attended by the village families. In the program, the necessity of education, regular attendance and completing education diligently was stressed by social worker, Mr.Ananta and the HM. The parents were apprised on the significance of sending children to school. Each child was presented a School kit. The school kits became a hit. “We saw an immediate change – the very next day onwards, more than 30 children started coming to school. I reported this to the Narayanpatna Block EO.” With 50% more than the benchmark level, this OSF initiative put a happy closure to the closure plans! The children still continue and the school is all alive.

Aiming High

February 11, 2021 Charity Admin Social

Radhika Himeraka is from Bada Bankidi in Koraput District in Odisha. Her parents passed away in her childhood. At that time, she couldn’t get proper schooling and now she lives with her sister in the village. She was a daily wage laborer.

Radhika has successfully finished a tailoring training course which was organized in their village by Operation Sahay Foundation. “I am very thankful to OSF. Because I have no parents, I was uneducated and was unworthy to join the training but OSF provided the tailoring course in my village!”

Now she does part-time tailoring and gets about 3 customers a week from her village. She is able to stitch ladies’ dresses, blouses, kids wear and work on old clothes. It is an alternate source of income and Radhika could cut-down on the hard work as a field-laborer. On her future plans – “I would like to start a tailoring centre, perhaps with some of my friends.

Treat: Meant to cure

June 18, 2021 Charity Admin Health

Asu, a farmer from Pipalpadar village of Koraput District, aged about 45 was suffering from body pain and fever for two days. He came to know about OSF’s AMP (Aarogya Medical Point) centre. It is supervised by Sibana Mauka, a peer villager. AMP keeps a stock of the normal OTC medicines like paracetamol, pain killers, ORS etc.

Given the remoteness, people tend to ignore symptoms and neglect their health. AMP presence was therefore initiated to encourage people to actively take help from the nearest PHC, Asha Worker or Hospital as well. The protocol to attend to the needs were provided by Asha Kiran Hospital and the norm is strictly followed.

Asu visited the centre on 10^th June at 9.30 AM. Sibana, our volunteer registered his name and his details by asking his history in the patient register. He also checked his temperature by the contact-less thermometer which showed 100.5 F. So, he gave 2 paracetamol tablets and advised how to take it and to visit the AMP centre next day. He was asked to use Mask at home, given the Covid threat.

The next day he visited the AMP centre and thanked volunteer Sibana. He said that, had he not got the medicine, he would have rested and slept at home for more days without doing his farm work. The other option would be go to Narayanpatna and spend a minimum Rs. 100/- . “Now I am treated freely and very soon I will be back to my field – it means much to us”

Well Settled

April 11, 2021 Charity Admin Social

Rani Meleka lives in Tikarapada village in Koraput District. She couldn’t get proper education in her childhood. Husband is a tractor driver and they have young child. His job is farm dependent and so it’s a seasonal income for the family. Often, it’s a struggle to keep the family afloat.

Operation Sahay Foundation opened a skill development centre near to their village. Rani joined the centre to learn stitching with an intent to have a consistent source of income. It was a little difficult to learn tailoring with her meagre educational background but coped up with the help of a perseverant teacher and hard work. Now she has successfully completed the course and earned a certificate. She and her family are happy as she bought a machine with some savings and is now stitching clothes.

Rani specializes in blouses and all ladies’ garments. She gets 5-6 customers a week from the villages near her. Now she is able to earn roughly Rs.1200 a week. This is a big boost to her family income. She says “I am grateful to OSF for providing the tailoring training near my village. It supported me financially and owing to this I am able to fulfill the needs of my family being able to stitch my own clothes and other’s clothes as well.”

Charity Admin

Eliminating Learning Poverty

How Can You Help.

Balancing Weighing Imbalance

Closure to School Closure Plans

Treat: Meant to cure

About Us

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Well Settled

Charity Admin

Eliminating Learning Poverty

How Can You Help.

Balancing Weighing Imbalance

Closure to School Closure Plans

Aiming High

Treat: Meant to cure​

Well Settled

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Treat: Meant to cure