Site visit report for Vasundhara (Feb 2007)

About Vasundhara

Vasundhara is more than a decade-old organization, founded by Mr. C B Naik who has been a close associate of Baba Amte. He left his job at Bank of India in 1994 to start this organization. It operates with an objective of upgrading the standard of science and mathematics education in rural part of Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra. The primary activity of this organization is called Science-on-wheel (SOW). As part of this program, a vehicle carrying Science teachers and laboratory equipments visits 60 High schools (8th and 9th standards) and a similar number of Upper Primary Schools (5th to 7th standards) twice a year. The Science teachers teach scientific concepts by making use of these equipments and also let students use these equipments to learn concepts by doing simple experiments. This vehicle visits only those schools that are from rural area of the district and excludes schools based in the towns of the district.

Besides SOW, Vasundhara operates a Eureka Hall, a micro version of any large science center such as Mumbai-based Nehru Science Center. This center hosts a number of setups for conducting simple but exciting experiments. Students from many schools visit this center as part of their educational trips. Vasundhara also organizes residential camps for selected students across the year, in which students can conduct various concepts over a period of 2-3 days. There are few more activities that are relatively minor but are in accordance with the objectives of the trust.

My visit to the Science Center

I reached Vasundhara Science Center in the evening of Tuesday February 6. I was accompanied by Raja Sawant. Raja primarily works as a driver of the van but also handles all local administrative activities for Vasundhara. Since Mr. C B Naik was in Mumbai during my visit, Raja played my host. In his early twenties, Raja seemed to be very dedicated to Vasundhara’s activities. Later in the day, he told me about his struggle in life after his father passed away some years back and attributed his current well-being to the help provided by Mr. Barde (President of Vasundhara Trustee Board) and Mr. Naik. I was also impressed by his understanding of the purpose behind Vasundhara activities and his passion about the need for value education in addition to Science and Mathematics education. He requested me to have Asha additionally work on value education.

When I reached center, I met Vilas Sawant. Vilas primarily works as a night guardian at the center. During the camps, however, he gets additional responsibility of looking after the residence of students. Vilas hails from a farmer’s family. Besides working at Vasundhara, he does farming during monsoon and also joins his brother in house-painting jobs. He proudly told me that he along with other staff members, painted the center thereby saving a good amount of money for the trust.

Next day morning, I came back to the Science Center. I was planned to visit the two schools, one secondary and one primary along with SOW team. When I reached center, we had a small meeting with the SOW team and with Mr. Pradeep Barde. Mr. Pradeep Barde works as a Principal in a school and is also the President of Vasundhara Trustee Board. I found Mr. Barde quite down-to-earth and sincere person. He gave me brief information about the project and requested me to see the experiments at the center along with a SOW teacher who could explain me the concepts behind these experiments. Incidentally at that time a group of students came to the center. They were from a primary school and were on an educational trip along with their teachers. So instead of showing the experiments to me only, the Vasundhara teachers got engaged in showing some experiments to this group of students (around 50 in number) along with me. Each experiment was initially shown as a magic trick (it was indeed!) and then the Vasundhara teacher explained the scientific reasoning behind it. The students were quite excited. I checked with the teachers of that school on how they came to know of Vasundhara. They told me that they heard about it from some people and were eager to have SOW come to their school. While Vasundhara teachers promised to work out the feasibility, I was not sure how this school could be accommodated given that the schedule of SOW van is almost full for the year.

While at the center, I also met Mrs. Vandana Karambelkar. Mrs. Karambelkar works at a local branch of State Bank of India and is on a trustee board of Vasundhara. Quite energetic in nature, Mrs. Karambelkar told me that they are trying to get a grant for adding healthcare activities. Taking a cue from Mr. Naik, Mrs. Karambelkar, who seemed to be in her late forties, told me of her plans to leave the job and get full-time involved in social service activities.

My journey with SOW team

At around 10:30 am, we stared from the center in a SOW van. During the 30-minute journey I started talking to the teachers. There were six teachers, four of which were for teaching Secondary school students while rest two were for teaching primary school students. They also updated me on the activities of Vasundhara.

I got down along with four secondary school teachers while the van took rest of two teachers to nearby primary school. We all were welcomed by the teachers of the school as the school was about to begin. The Principal of the school was on vacation that day so I started talking to the Clerk of this school to know more about the school. This school is run by a trust but is fully aided by the Government. However, as per the clerk of the school, the aid is sufficient only for teacher’s salary and very inadequate for any academic activities. As per him, the SOW program gives chance to their students to put hands on some scientific equipment.

The school timings were 11 am to 4:30 pm and as there was this visit of SOW team, the regular time-table for 8th and 9th standards was replaced for SOW activities for the day. The four Vasundhara teachers divided themselves into two groups and started teaching 8th and 9th standard students. For next two hours, I was going from one classroom to other to watch the teachers teach and students learn. It was nice to see the students enjoying doing simple experiments such as lightening small bulb using various types of circuit configurations or experiments based on Newton’s Laws of Physics.

I was told that the Vasundhara does not charge any fee to school for SOW activity but expects the school to provide lunch to its teachers. While Primary school arranged lunch for Vasundhara teachers, the Secondary school couldn’t do it, as it was far off from any village. So we went to a restaurant in nearby town. After lunch I went to visit Primary School and observed Vasundhara teachers teaching to 5th, 6th and 7th students and also the students doing experiments. I also talked with the Primary school teachers. They told me that although Zilla Parishad (ZP) runs the school, it gets very little scientific equipment and that too of low quality. They were very happy about SOW program. In the end of the day, they felicitated both Vasundhara teachers for their help. I was also got felicitated as they assumed myself to be part of Vasundhara! I didn’t bother to correct them either!

My opinions

Great Concept, Excellent Execution; if I have to describe the work of Vasundhara in four words, I can do it using these four words. While I knew the concept before this site visit, I could see the execution first-hand during this visit.

I missed to meet both Mr. Naik and Mr. Rajeev Vartak. While Mr. Naik looks after running the organization and lately raising funds, it’s Mr. Vartak who conceptualizes the experiments to be conducted during SOW and is also the architect of many other Vasundhara activities. He visits at least once in a month and is present during the residential camps. Incidentally I found that even in the absence of these two persons, the organization functions quite effectively. That leads me to a conclusion that this organization has put up a good team in place and thus achieved excellence in its operation.

Before making a site visit, I was wondering how one could quantify the benefits of SOW program. While the program reaches more than 10,000 students per year, I was not sure how to quantify the benefit for a single student. I checked with the SOW team but they too did not have a precise answer. Finally I reached the conclusion that it is difficult to measure the benefit for each student in quantitative terms. However, the joy and the confidence that I could observe on each student’s face while they were doing the experiments also told me that there is a qualitative difference SOW program is making to their overall education experience.

Finally let me comment on financials of the organization. I was provided with the financial reports for FY 2004-05 and FY 2005-06 and brief annual report for FY 2005-06. I found the accounts are well maintained and there is increasing share of funding coming from sources other than Asha. At the same time, the activities and hence fund requirements are also increasing. The lease of the land for the center will expire in few years. I was told that since the existing center is on the Mumbai-Goa highway, the lease is unlikely to be renewed due to increasing price of land there. Hence the organization has got another 5 acres of land on a 99-years lease from Gram-panchayat in nearby village called Nerurpar (native place of Mr. Naik). Now the focus is on building a bigger science center on this land within next few years. Given the capabilities of the team at work and their track record, it is worthwhile for us to try to arrange as much funds as we can, for this organization’s activities.