About VIDYAPOSHAK in P B Road, Dharwad

Vidya Poshak (VP), India is a registered Civil Society Organization serving education community since the year 2001. Though Vidya Poshak was started with the programme of supporting students financially to pursue higher education, many other programs evolved during the journey. Some of our major projects are Nurture Merit, Abdul Kalam Susandhi Fellowship Program, coaching potential students for cracking IIT/JEE and Value and Career education for high school students. All the programmes of VP depend entirely on generous donations from individual and institutional donors. More than 500 senior volunteers and two hundred youth volunteers across 12 districts are rendering their passionate services free of cost.

Nurture Merit Program
This program includes Financial Assistance, Library facilities and Residential Bridge Camp for the meritorious but financially distressed students. Till date Vidya Poshak has invested more than INR 300 million on this.

1.Financial Assistance: VP provides financial assistance to meritorious students who cannot afford to continue their post 10th class education owing to financial difficulties. The financial assistance covers college fees, exam fees and travel to colleges. Along with this additional amount for coaching is given in most deserving cases. In some extreme situations additional assistance is extended to cover accommodation and boarding. The identification of students is done in a unique way through physical visits by volunteers to dwelling units of students to assess the need to ensure only deserving receive the assistance.

Since inception, VP has disbursed more than INR 160 million towards financial assistance. More than 15,000 students have been assisted from 19 districts of Karnataka. The progress of each student is closely monitored throughout the support period.

2.Library Services: Free Text books are lent to all the students through libraries and book bank centers located in different parts of area of VP’s operation. Students can take home academic text books for a year and return the same at the end of the year so that the same books are put in circulation. The services can also be accessed by interested students though they are not VP scholars. One Central Library, 5 branches and 28 Rural Book Bank centers (all run by volunteers) are catering to the students. Overall 77,000 books are available at our library centers and nearly 1,87,000 students have got benefit out of this till now.

3.Residential Bridge Camps (RBC): The RBCs aim at bringing positive change in the overall personality of the students. The camps also stress on Skills, Knowledge and Attitude apart from Career guidance and counseling (both career and personal). The camps can be of either 5 days or 9 days duration. RBCs strive to bridge the gap between the academia and career goals of students. It augments the needs of students which they rarely get in their formal schooling. Under this program, more than 8400 students have been trained through 154 camps thus far. The participants have been found to be able to get rid of their inferiority complex and gain confidence which enables them to be better communicators than before. They will be better equipped to face challenges in life.

Abdul Kalam Susandhi Fellowship(AKSF) Program
AKSF is a unique program, aiming to transform the lives of the rural poor by enabling their children to pursue a world class professional program in the hi-tech domain of VLSI/Embedded/Software. The program is designed to nurture their inherent strengths and at the same time impart significant new skills, both technical and life skills, to enable them to confidently enter the Hi-Tech domain of VLSI/Embedded/Software arena.

AKSF is modeled on the “Gurukul” philosophy, where the students undergo one year residential training. The learning will be practical and experiential. The students will better their adaptability skills. As the students learn the technical and non-technical skills they will be able to work at the level where it matters the most.
More details are available at http://www.eklakshya.com

VP - Avanti Learning Center (IIT/JEE Coaching)
About Avanti Learning Centre: Avanti Learning Centre is an award-winning, venture backed education company started by IIT and Harvard University alumni. Avanti is helping high-school students across India study science through peer collaboration-a method developed by Prof. Eric Mazur, Dean of Applied physics at Harvard University and Chair of Avanti’s Academic Advisory Board.
Vidya Poshak is associated with Avanti in an effort to conduct an after-college Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics excellence program for class XI and XII students. The program focuses on balanced preparation for competitive engineering exams (IIT/JEE ) and board exams. Avanti’s curriculum is designed to complement teaching during college hours. The program aims at reinforcing conceptual understanding, providing additional problem solving abilities and helping students find and achieve their academic and career goals.

Skill Development Program (SDP)
SDP, a training program of Vidya Poshak has been initiated to cater to the soft skills training requirements of the educational community. Since its introduction, more than a lakh of students, 4,663 teachers, 5728 employees, from more than 300 institutions apart from hundreds of parents have been trained. SDP aims at providing quality training at affordable cost to the rural colleges. Some of the modules covered are Personality development and Motivation, Communication and Presentation skills, Emotion management, Creativity, Employability Skills (Interview Skills), Analytical skills, English Speaking skills, Career guidance, etc. For teachers, modules such as Ethics in teaching, Creative teaching techniques, Teachers as Leaders, Classroom Management are delivered apart from the modules mentioned above. Those already employed can be trained in modules such as corporate etiquettes, how to do well in job, etc apart from other modules. For high school students value and career guidance is offered additionally.
More than 2500 rural economically challenged students have been trained and placed successfully under the Corporate Readiness program.

Awards/Honors:
•One of the few CSO’s in India graded by CRISIL as Strong in Delivery Capability
•Spirit of humanity award 2016 for Excellence in Education, awarded by Americares India Foundation in the category of "Education"
•Winner eNGO award 2013 for Organizational efficiency by Digital Empowerment Foundation.
•Education Loan awareness and Advocacy Program (ELAAP) was one of the winners for Manthan Social Media Award in the year 2013
•Regional finalist for “Apeejay India Volunteer Award” in the category ‘Volunteer involving NGO of the year 2011’
•Adjudged as “Technology for NGO” by Microsoft, USA (Video document on VP could be seen on MS website)
•Declared as a Platinum Partner by Deshpande Foundation in the year 2009.
•Honored by Kannada Sahitya Parishattu, Dharwad taluk in its First Sahitya Sammelana at Dharwad.

For more information, please contact:
Venkatesan N
Executive Director
Ph: +91-9845038017 email: venkatesh@vidyaposhak.org Web: www.vidyaposhak.ngo