Our work ...... 4
The Need ...... 5
Our People ...... 6
Ignite ...... 7
Impact ...... 8
Nakshatra...... 9
Catalyse ...... 10
Ignite - Community Centres ...... 11
Flood relief centre...... 12
Financials ...... 13
Help us Grow ...... 14
About us
Vision: Helping build a more influential, equal and socially conscious society since 2006
Mission: Bhumi drives social change by fostering an environment where young adults & children learn, lead and thrive.
One of India’s largest independent youth volunteer nonprofit organisations, Bhumi was founded in Chennai on August 15, 2006 by a group of young friends with a passion to change society as it is today and build a better tomorrow.
Bhumi believes that every under-privileged child deserves quality education. We have transformed this conviction into a volunteering opportunity for India's youth, launching a snowball effect of talent nurturing talent on the path to an educated, poverty-free India.
Our work
Bhumi has two core areas of work – Education and Civic Projects
Ignite: Transformational Education
Bhumi's supplementary education programme benefits children from shelter homes, slum and village community centres. The programme is delivered during the weekends by young, trained volunteers of Bhumi. The personal growth through the programme is evident in both volunteers and children – our volunteers gain perspective and the experience to mould themselves into leaders in their communities, while academic/life skills support creates a better future for the children.
Catalyse: Transforming Citizenry
Bhumi’s civic projects engage volunteers in causes like animal welfare, community welfare, disability, environment, health etc. in one-off and regular volunteering activities. Volunteer opportunities are managed through Volunteers.org, which is a platform that allows people to volunteer for a cause of their choice and allows other nonprofit, corporate groups tap into Bhumi’s network of volunteers.
Impact
Number of learning centres: 374 Number of Children served: 13,898 Number of volunteers: 8,730
The Need
Despite the advancement in the Right to Education act and primary school enrollment at nearly 100%, the quality of education received by those at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid needs significant improvement. The children go through ineffectual schooling, resulting in them lagging behind in language, mathematics, science and other core subjects, creating a barrier for accessing higher education and further pursuing a suitable employment.
Only 47% of Class 5 children can read Class 2 text Only 48% of Class 8 children can do division problems
Bhumi’s supplementary education interventions improve analytical thinking, enhance creativity and provide good role models for the children. All children receive individual attention from caring young adult volunteers, explore new interests, receive educational support, develop a sense of belonging to a group and build a sense of self-esteem - reflected in better academic performance and long term aspiration.
Bhumi’s Ignite volunteers receive year round support in the area of curriculum, pedagogy, and lesson planning. All volunteers leverage technology extensively to deliver high impact at low costs.
Our People
As an organisation started by a handful of volunteers, volunteerism is at the heart of every aspect of our work. We are passionate not only about engaging volunteers effectively within Bhumi but also about promoting volunteerism as a national habit. In 2014, we were awarded the ‘Leader in Volunteer Engagement’ at the iVolunteer Awards and in 2015 we jointly organised ‘VolCon’, India’s first national conference on volunteering. Starting off with a handful of volunteers, we have engaged close to 8,700 volunteers this year and have clocked an estimated11 lakh volunteering hours cumulatively since 2006.
If one engaged volunteer can change the life trajectory for five children - the social, economic and environmental returns on our society are immense. Volunteers Year engaged 5 2006 – 2007 10 2007 – 2008 150 2008 – 2009 200 2009 – 2010 305 2010 – 2011 900 2011 – 2012 1200 2012 – 2013 5588 2013 – 2014 3,862 2014 – 2015 8,730 2015 – 2016
Ignite
Mathematics o Enables children from primary school to develop a holistic and deeper understanding of key mathematical concepts in a hands-on environment. The focus is on acquisition of fundamental mathematical skills. Computers o Aimed at children with limited or no access to computers; participants receive training in basics of computers, Microsoft Office and the Internet. The curriculum has been developed in-house to provide sufficient practical exposure to computers. Science o Helps children in middle school improve practical understanding of science. Facilitated hands-on experimentation ensure improvements in conceptual understanding and application English o Integrated approach to language acquisition, which involves a combination of phonics and whole language learning for children from primary school. Facilitates peer learning, allowing time for each child to experience the learning errors of self and others, and problem solve in a collaborative fashion. Mentoring o Addresses the lack of positive role models in the lives of adolescents through one to one mentoring and an activity based model to impart life skills such as communication, team work, goal setting and creativity. Robotics o An exciting hands-on programme that helps children learn scientific concepts by building robots on their own. It helps children develop interest in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Talent Development o Helps children in middle school explore their talent in sports like football, volleyball, throw ball, badminton and arts like dance, painting, music and theatre. The refreshing fun-filled sessions provide an enriching experience outside of school.
Project Number of Beneficiaries Mathematics 985 Computers 808 Science 454 English 542 Mentoring 380 Others 373
Impact
Children benefiting from of our educational programme are assessed through a baseline test at the beginning of the year and another assessment at the end of the year. The children have made significant improvements in closing the educational gap. Here’s a snapshot of the skill wise improvements in English and Mathematics made by children of class 4 part of the Ignite Programme.
English – Phonics
Avg Mastery at Avg Mastery at Phonetic 2015 - 16 BAT EYA Class 1 12.0 34.7 Class 2 7.8 28.6 Class 3 22.2 33.9 Class 4 23.8 39.8 Class 5 37.1 52.3
English
Karadi Path 2015 - Avg Mastery at Avg Mastery at 16 BAT EYA Class 1 11.0 25.7 Class 2 14.5 39.0 Class 3 26.5 37.7 Class 4 22.1 27.2 Class 5 33.6 41.9
Mathematics
Avg BAT level Avg EYA level Class 1 1.1 1.2 Class 2 1.2 1.5 Class 3 1.2 1.6 Class 4 1.6 2.2 Class 5 1.9 2.5
Nakshatra
Two day inter-shelter home annual talent festival to unleash the creative potential of children. Nakshatra provides a platform for our beneficiaries to showcase their extracurricular capabilities.
Nakshatra by Numbers - # of Children in each city
Project Number of Beneficiaries Bengaluru Arts 586 Chennai Arts 1074 Chennai Sports 1290 Delhi Arts 621 Trichy Arts 874 Reach Out 253
The events include a wide array of arts (like Clay Modelling, Face Painting, Rangoli), literary (like Adzap, Quiz, Story Writing), cultural (like Singing, Dancing, Skit) and sports (like track & field events, indoor sports, football). Catalyse
Bhumi strongly believes in citizen level initiatives to address social issues that plague communities throughout India. With the aim to raise awareness about responsible citizenship and to foster civic change, Bhumi encourages citizens to volunteer for causes of their choice. Promoting volunteerism, activating citizens, and incubating innovative projects add a layer to our child-focused efforts. These make it possible for people to join Bhumi’s virtuous cycle at multiple places. From short term to long-term opportunities, our civic projects span a variety of causes.
Ignite - Community Centres
Vision: The Bhumi slum community centre aims to provide: a) A safe, positive and healthy environment in after school centre. b) Academic support to ensure Tamil and English literacy and Mathematical skills are honed age appropriately. c) A trigger to social consciousness for the young minds d) A platform to discover and explore one’s individual talents.
Our Model:
The Bhumi centre works with children in classes 3 – 8, handled by 2 tutors in their own classrooms of 15 – 20 children in each. The centre operates on 6 days: Monday to Saturday for two and a half hours on each day. The academic focus for the children in classes 3 – 5 is on Tamil, English and Maths; for classes 6 – 8 is English and Maths.
The target group for the centre is identified based on Socio economic background of the people in Slum communities. An Education Audit (Similar to ASER survey) is conducted with the dual purpose of enlightening the parents on the current knowledge level of the kids in the basic skills tested and also as a door-to-door campaign to promote the new centre in the community.
The children are inducted into the classes with the permission of the parents and assessed at a broader assessment to record the baseline status of the skills at the start of the centre. These are documented for the reference of the Tutor and the children on the skill chart. The skill chart is a matrix of all the important skills for classes 3-5 and classes 6-8 in Tamil, English and Maths.
The progress of the kids during the classes is initially marked by the tutor after each concept is covered and the skill mastery of the kid is verified by the Coordinators. Once All the kids have achieved mastery in any one or more skills, a “Declaration day” is celebrated which is to showcase the skill mastery to all parents and the community; here the kids are called forward to be tested (on that particular skill) by anyone from the audience.
Flood relief centre
The Bhumi team operated a Relief Centre for the TN Floods in Chennai between Dec 08 – Dec 20. The relief centre collected relief materials from hundreds of donors and used 100+ volunteers to sort, pack the materials, while another team of volunteers verified requests and fulfilled them.
During this period, the relief centre channeled relief material worth an estimated Rs.72,95,878/- towards communities and children’s homes in Chennai, Chidambaram, Cuddalore, Kancheepuram, Panruti, Pondicherry, Tindivanam, Tiruvallur & Virudhachalam.
Please note this does not include materials that were donated and directly given to the beneficiaries or to other partner organisations part of the Chennai Rain Relief Team.
All of us at Bhumi are thankful To the Olympia group for providing us the relief centre To all those who offered us their homes and offices as relief centres and helped us get the centre To all the countless donors who donated relief materials from across Chennai and the rest of India. To Amazon India, Mahindra Home Finance, NTT Data, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, Hitachi Metals, Srinar Electronics and all our corporate partners who supported us To all those who donated financial support or fund-raised via Bhumi(India), Bhumi (USA), Letzchange etc. from across the world To the Bhumi teams in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi and other places for collecting relief materials To the countless Bhumi volunteers who made all this possible
Financials
2014-2015 INCOME 2015-2016
7,173,040 Total Income 51,590,792 EXPENDITURE
- TN Flood Relief 14,054,880
3,889,482 Ignite 4,247,664
46,693 Catalyse 430,746
1,034,964 Nakshatra 832,558
1,214,108 Miscellaneous 1,781,541
6,185,247 Project Expenses 21,347,389
796,082 Administrative Expenses 1,590,354
6,981,329 Total Expenses 22,937,743
Full Audit report is available at www.bhumi.ngo/legal
Help us Grow
Rs. 1,000 will help us educate a child for a year
Rs. 3,000 will help us train 50 new volunteer teachers
Rs. 13,000 will help us get a new computer for our children
Become ‘Friends of Bhumi’ - Contribute every month through Electronic Clearing Service (ECS) or ACH.
Details on www.bhumi.ngo/donate
Be our knowledge partner - share your corporate/management expertise and provide pro-bono consulting
Engage employees/students in team volunteering opportunities through the volunteers.org platform
Donate used computers/laptops/tablet PCs to help scale our technology driven educational projects.
Help with scaling and increasing impact in your region by partnering with us on your CSR initiatives
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